Loss Exceeding $26 Million: Analysis of Truebit Protocol Security Incident and Tracking of Stolen Funds Flow

marsbitPubblicato 2026-01-09Pubblicato ultima volta 2026-01-09

Introduzione

On January 9, the Truebit Protocol suffered an attack resulting in a loss of 8,535.36 ETH (approximately $26.4 million) due to an exploit in a five-year-old unaudited and unopen-sourced contract. The attack involved a suspected arithmetic logic flaw, possibly due to integer truncation, in an unverified function (0xa0296215). The attacker repeatedly called this function with a minimal msg.value to mint a large number of TRU tokens, which were then burned to withdraw ETH from the contract’s reserves. According to Beosin’s analysis, the stolen funds—totaling 8,535.36 ETH—were primarily transferred to two addresses: 0xd12f6e0fa7fbf4e3a1c7996e3f0dd26ab9031a60 (holding 4,267.09 ETH) and 0x273589ca3713e7becf42069f9fb3f0c164ce850a (holding 4,001 ETH). The attacker’s address (0x6c8ec8f14be7c01672d31cfa5f2cefeab2562b50) still retains 267.71 ETH. All related addresses have been flagged as high-risk by Beosin KYT. The incident underscores the importance of security audits, contract upgrades, and incorporating emergency pause mechanisms and modern Solidity safety features to mitigate risks in legacy smart contracts.

Author: Beosin

In the early hours of January 9, an unopen-sourced contract deployed by Truebit Protocol 5 years ago was attacked, resulting in a loss of 8,535.36 ETH (worth approximately $26.4 million). The Beosin security team conducted an analysis of the vulnerability and fund tracking for this security incident and shares the results as follows:

Attack Technique Analysis

For this incident, we take the most significant attack transaction as the analysis subject, with the transaction hash: 0xcd4755645595094a8ab984d0db7e3b4aabde72a5c87c4f176a030629c47fb014

1. The attacker calls getPurchasePrice() to obtain the price

2. Subsequently calls the flawed function 0xa0296215(), setting the msg.value extremely low

Since the contract is not open-source, it is inferred from the decompiled code that this function has an arithmetic logic vulnerability, such as integer truncation issues, allowing the attacker to successfully mint a large number of TRU tokens.

3. The attacker "sells back" the minted tokens to the contract through the burn function, extracting a large amount of ETH from the contract reserves.

This process is repeated 4 more times, with the msg.value increasing each time, until almost all ETH in the contract is extracted.

Stolen Funds Tracking

Based on on-chain transaction data, Beosin conducted a detailed fund tracking through its blockchain on-chain investigation and tracking platform, BeosinTrace, and shares the results as follows:

Currently, the stolen 8,535.36 ETH, after transfers, are mostly held in 0xd12f6e0fa7fbf4e3a1c7996e3f0dd26ab9031a60 and 0x273589ca3713e7becf42069f9fb3f0c164ce850a.

Among them, address 0xd12f holds 4,267.09 ETH, and address 0x2735 holds 4,001 ETH. The address from which the attacker initiated the attack (0x6c8ec8f14be7c01672d31cfa5f2cefeab2562b50) still holds 267.71 ETH. There have been no further fund transfers from these three addresses yet.

Stolen Funds Flow Analysis Diagram by Beosin Trace

The above addresses have been marked as high-risk addresses by Beosin KYT. Taking the attacker's address as an example:

Beosin KYT

Conclusion

This stolen fund incident involves an unopen-sourced smart contract from 5 years ago. For such contracts, the project team should upgrade the contract, introduce emergency pause functions, parameter limitations, and new Solidity security features. Furthermore, security audits remain an essential step for contracts. Through security audits, Web3 enterprises can comprehensively detect smart contract code, identify and fix potential vulnerabilities, and enhance contract security.

*Beosin will provide a complete analysis report of all fund flows and address risks for this incident. Welcome to request it via the official email [email protected].

Domande pertinenti

QWhat was the total amount of ETH stolen in the Truebit Protocol security incident?

A8,535.36 ETH, valued at approximately $26.4 million.

QWhich function did the attacker call to exploit the vulnerability in the unopened contract?

AThe attacker called the function 0xa0296215() with a very small msg.value to exploit an arithmetic logic vulnerability, likely due to integer truncation issues.

QHow did the attacker convert the fraudulently minted TRU tokens into ETH?

AThe attacker used the burn function to 'sell back' the minted TRU tokens to the contract, extracting a large amount of ETH from the contract reserves.

QWhat are the two main addresses where the stolen ETH is currently held?

AThe majority of the stolen ETH is held in addresses 0xd12f6e0fa7fbf4e3a1c7996e3f0dd26ab9031a60 (4,267.09 ETH) and 0x273589ca3713e7becf42069f9fb3f0c164ce850a (4,001 ETH).

QWhat security measures does Beosin recommend to prevent such incidents?

ABeosin recommends upgrading the contract to include emergency pause functions, parameter limits, and new Solidity security features, as well as conducting thorough security audits to detect and fix potential vulnerabilities.

Letture associate

9.42 Million Retail Investors Compete for Changxin Technology, Who Got Allotted?

Evergreen Technology's IPO subscription results are now available. On July 20, the domestic memory chip giant announced the offline preliminary allotment results and online lottery results for its IPO. A total of approximately 9.43 million retail investors participated in the online subscription, generating 770,000 winning lots with a final winning rate of about 0.4714%, setting a record for new shares on the STAR Market. After triggering a clawback mechanism from institutional to retail investors, the online retail allocation was significantly increased to 3.851 billion shares. Simultaneously, 285 institutional investors participated in the offline subscription, ultimately receiving 2.173 billion shares at an allotment rate of approximately 0.1756%. Leading insurers and public funds were among the major recipients. Notably, Liang Wenfeng, founder of the major AI model company DeepSeek, through his quantitative investment firms Ningbo Huanfang Quantitative and Zhejiang Jiuzhang Asset, secured the largest share among private funds, with a total allotment worth approximately 175 million yuan. Estimates suggest potential profits could reach 730 million yuan if Evergreen Technology's market capitalization reaches 3 trillion yuan post-listing. The company is expected to list on July 27 and could become the highest-valued tech stock on the A-share market, with various brokerages providing valuations ranging from 1 trillion to over 4 trillion yuan. However, recent significant corrections in global tech stocks may impact its post-listing performance. (Character count: 1,196)

marsbit49 min fa

9.42 Million Retail Investors Compete for Changxin Technology, Who Got Allotted?

marsbit49 min fa

L2 'Recalibration': When L1 Becomes Its Own Rollup, What Is Ethereum's Endgame?

The article discusses the evolving relationship between Ethereum's Layer 1 (L1) and Layer 2 (L2) solutions, moving beyond the initial "L2 for scaling" model. As Ethereum L1 itself scales (increasing Gas Limit, statelessness, zkEVM), the unique value proposition of L2s shifts from merely providing cheap execution to offering differentiated features like application-specific optimization, privacy, and flexible governance. The piece explores three key themes: 1. **L2's New Role:** L2s are transitioning from a pure scaling technology to a spectrum of execution environments with varying degrees of security inheritance from Ethereum L1. 2. **Interoperability as State Trust:** Solving L2 fragmentation is less about cross-chain bridges and more about enabling faster, trust-minimized state verification between environments. This involves initiatives like faster L1 finality, intent-based architectures (Open Intents Framework), and native account abstraction. 3. **Blurring Layers:** With the potential integration of zk-proofs into L1 validation (making L1 akin to its own "Rollup") and the concept of "Native Rollups," the rigid boundary between L1 and L2 may fade. The future could be a unified system with multiple execution domains (for DeFi, gaming, privacy, etc.) sharing a common security, settlement, and state framework. In conclusion, Ethereum's goal is not to abandon L2s or re-centralize everything on L1, but to re-integrate the fragmented user experience—liquidity, accounts, applications—while preserving the scaling benefits of a multi-environment ecosystem. The endgame is a cohesive "one chain" feeling for users, powered by diverse but securely interconnected execution layers.

marsbit1 h fa

L2 'Recalibration': When L1 Becomes Its Own Rollup, What Is Ethereum's Endgame?

marsbit1 h fa

Trading

Spot
活动图片