How much was lost in the XCAD hack?

The XCAD hack resulted in $100K in losses on April 11, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the XCAD exploit?

The XCAD exploit utilized Rugpull. Understanding this attack vector is critical for smart contract auditors and developers building secure DeFi protocols.

How can developers prevent similar smart contract attacks?

Preventing smart contract hacks requires a combination of secure coding practices, thorough security audits, and understanding common attack vectors like reentrancy, oracle manipulation, and access control flaws. Smart Contract Hacking (SCH) provides hands-on training to help developers and auditors identify and prevent vulnerabilities before deployment.

XCAD Hack

TOTAL LOST $100K

Low Apr 11, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1525 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

On the 11th of April XCAD on the BSC chain was rugged for approx 100k USD.

Details of the Exploit

The team responsible for managing liquidity in the XCAD protocol executed a liquidity removal scam, causing the project to suffer significant losses. The contract deployer removed a significant amount of liquidity pool (LP) and sold off the token, leading to a sharp drop of around 90% in its initial price.

Block Data Reference

Scammer:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x8dce7d8d…9773ca

Liquidity removal:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x6bb3c129…8de6c3

Incident Report

Protocol / Project XCAD

Date of Incident April 11, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token PLAY

Team Anonymous

Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

Base Ecosystem X Layer Ecosystem Xlayer Ecosystem

What the Attacker Needed to Succeed

Understanding the prerequisites for this type of attack helps auditors identify protocols that are most at risk and helps developers build better defenses.

Technical Knowledge Deep understanding of rugpull and Solidity and EVM internals

Capital Required Seed capital to cover gas and initial position setup

On-Chain Access Ability to interact with smart contracts and deploy a custom exploit contract

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in XCAD's contract logic - root cause: token

Execution Speed Precise transaction ordering and timing to exploit the vulnerability within a single atomic block

Obfuscation Plan A strategy to launder and move stolen funds - typically through mixers, cross-chain bridges, or decentralized DEX swaps to resist tracing

What Auditors Should Check

Could this have been caught in audit? Hard to catch — private key / OpSec failures are outside smart contract audit scope

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to XCAD, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (April 2023).

Verify all logic paths related to Rugpull are guarded by proper access controls and input validation
Review privileged functions (owner, admin, governance) for potential abuse vectors - centralization risks should be documented and bounded with timelocks or multi-sigs

Master these auditing techniques with hands-on labs and real exploit scenarios in the Smart Contract Hacking course.

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Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/CertiKAlert/status/1645721430921826306?s=20

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

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