Incident Overview
The attacker's address:
https://bscscan.com/address/0x53d4307d…9c18fd
The transaction behind the attack:
https://bscscan.com/tx/0xc14ae484…5727fc
The Zenon Network hack was made possible by an unprotected burn function within the smart contract. Zenon Network left external access to the burn() function:
https://twitter.com/peckshield/status/1462165620506742784
The attacker deposited tokens in the protocol’s pool for wrapped ZNN (wZNN) tokens and then called the burn function to destroy over 26k wZNN tokens. This decreased the supply of wZNN tokens, increasing their value dramatically. As a result, when the attacker redeemed his wZNN tokens, the pool believed that he was owed a massive number of WBNB tokens, enabling him to drain the pool. Stolen funds were deposited into the Tornado Cash mixer.
Incident Report
Protocol Information
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.
What Auditors Should Check
If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Zenon Network, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (November 2021).
- Verify all logic paths related to Other 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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The Zenon Network hack is one of many attacks that skilled auditors are trained to detect before deployment. Master real exploit patterns and defense techniques with hands-on Web3 security training.