In a Tweet today, the CEO of SafeMoon, John Karony confirmed an exploit on the project’s liquidity pool. The CEO revealed that the exploit took place on Tuesday, 28, 2023. Karony assured community members that SafeMoon is working to resolve the situation. He went on to assure that the Decentralized Exchange of the project is intact, and the team will prioritize the safety of users.
Recall that hackers drained up to 27,000 BNB which is worth up to $9 million from the SafeMoon liquidity pool. Per emerging reports, the hackers leverage a bug in its smart contracts to carry out the exploit. However, some developers attributed the cause of the exploit to a bug in the burn feature of the project’s smart contracts.
One of these developers identified as “Mark Moon”, the CEO of Dappd attributed the lapses to the public burn function. Mark submitted via a tweet that the public burn function aids users to burn tokens from any other address. Therefore, initiating a malicious surge in the price of SafeMoon tokens.
Also, Blockchain analytical firm, PeckShield echoed the opinion of Dappd CEO, citing the newly added feature as the reason behind the bug. PeckShield added that there is a possibility that an admin key was compromised.
Meanwhile, SafeMoon is yet to give further headway about exploit. However, in a different tweet, Karony said they’ve located the source of the exploit and it has been addressed. He added that the team has consulted some blockchain forensics companies to measure the impact of the exploit and the actual cause.
Controversial SafeMoon?
Recall that in February 2022, a lawsuit alleged that SafeMoon hired some celebrities to promote the project. The lawsuits pointed to some celebrities like Nick Carter, Soulja Boy, Jake Paul, and Ben Philips. The lawsuit alleged that SafeMoon misled investors to acquire the SFM coins, promising them huge returns.
Then, there were controversies that the project attempted a gradual rug pull that saw the SFM coin plummet slowly. Lastly, the departure of top-class executive members of SafeMoon further fuel the allegation.
Worth mentioning that the attackers left an on-blockchain message after the exploitation. As revealed, they registered their willingness to refund the stolen funds, requesting that SafeMoon set up a secure communication channel. Shortly after the exploit, SFM plunged by 42% according to market data provided by Coinmarketcap. As at press time, the token is recovering gradually.
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