AutoShark Finance Flash Loan Attack

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AutoShark

AutoShark Finance is a yield optimizer smart contract. On October 29th, they suffered an economic exploit that saw the attacker make off with $2m. They've created a compensation plan for users who were affected.

This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.

About AutoShark

"AutoShark [started as] a yield optimizer for Automatic Liquidity Acquisition Farms & AMMs on the Binance Smart Chain. It is forked from PancakeBunny, and offers unparalleled access to farming opportunities through the use of superior yield strategies and auto-compounding vaults." "Autoshark was nearly [a] 1:1 fork of PancakeBunny."

"Amidst the numerous rug pulls that have happened over the past month, it will be inevitable that some investors will fall for the scams even if they have a favorite yield optimizer platform to be on. At AutoShark, we make sure to work only with the most established projects so yield farmers can have peace of mind when their assets are with us."

"AutoShark Finance is the 1st Hybrid AMM and Yield Optimizer, offering unparalleled access to farming opportunities through the use of superior yield strategies, auto-compounding vaults, and NFT-powered farming." "The goal of AutoShark is to build the number 1 most sustainable AMM + DEX and Yield Optimizer on the Binance Smart Chain." "To do so, we seek to capture interest through our aggregation of decentralized exchange swap systems and yield optimizing strategies."

"AutoShark has grown from being a yield optimizer to a project that focuses on building an entire ecosystem of sustainable DEFI products to help you get the safest and best possible yields on your cryptocurrency portfolio. We welcome cryptocurrency advocates from all walks of life, and present the following features for every different profile."

"The DeFi protocol AutoShark Finance on the Binance Smart Chain was attacked by hackers in a series of transactions, and the hackers made a profit of US$2 million (the protocol loss may be even greater)." "On Oct-29–2021 08:25:03 AM +UTC, an attacker manipulated the NOVA-BNB pool of ShibaNOVA by swapping back and forth many times. The balance of NOVA in that pool will get to near 0 after a swap of 50 times, which caused the price of NOVA in that pool to be sky-high." The "attacker manipulated the NOVA-BNB pool of ShibaNOVA by swapping back and forth many times."

"The price of $JAWS was also artificially increased so that the attacker can get more back from the performance fee (artificial WBNB profit) that is automatically being used for adding liquidity." "In addition, the attacker also utilized the use of 5 NFTs to boost the $JAWS rewards in the pool."

"The attacker made off with 4348.5 BNB drained from JAWS-BNB."

"The flash loan alert was initially sounded by PeckShield on Twitter earlier today, and the transaction details can be verified here, the significant sum lost appears to be in the remit of $1.5 million according to these transaction details. The AutoShark team have officially acknowledged the attack, as they grapple with a response."

"AutoShark immediately stopped all $JAWS minters in the wake of the attack and consulted with our auditor to pinpoint and disable all potentially vulnerable vaults. The funds that are currently in the farms are safe and the $FINS token was not affected by the exploit except for the price selloff."

"We take full responsibility for this lapse in judgment in upkeeping taxed vaults with low liquidity." “The team is looking into the issue right now. There appears to be an attack on $JAWS. Do NOT buy $JAWS,” the team confirmed via Twitter before adding that “$FINS is not affected. We will update ASAP.”

"There will be new minting logic to prevent attacks that seek to manipulate amount of performance fees that the Minter perceives. These will include logic that prevent minting above a max amount of supply at any point (over a time period). More detailed plan for this will be released after a full strategy has been drafted."

"A detailed compensation plan has been devised by the team and affected $JAWS users are our number one priority in the upcoming months." "The team have since disabled $FINS swap rewards in an attempt to combat the attack, but they remain in a vulnerable position."

"After re-assessing the situation, and taking in precious community feedback the AutoShark team has re-drafted a more proper compensation plan, while being very careful to keep inflationary worries under control. At the same time, we outline our going-forward plan to further cull any worries."

"JAWS holders were exploited for a total of $2,000,000. $JAWS price dropped from $0.50 to $0.12 (~76% drop), we have re-weighted the compensation amount to be 76% of the total amount: The final compensation amount given to pre-exploit $JAWS holders will be $1,600,000. We are still getting the snapshot data from the blockchain. LPs and single stake holders/stakers will be given cJAWS."

"Instead of the original intended $3,000,000 USD in $FINS, we will be reducing the total compensation amount to $1,600,000 USD in $FINS. This is done over 180 days as well to reduce sell pressure. We firmly believe that the original $JAWS holders are huge bulls of our platform, and will not be seeking to sell $FINS until the platform fully recovers, which is why we believe that this move will not create sell pressure on $FINS, and price floor will settle around the current ~$0.25 area."

This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.

The background of the exchange platform, service, or individuals involved, as it would have been seen or understood at the time of the events.

Include:

• Known history of when and how the service was started.
• What problems does the company or service claim to solve?
• What marketing materials were used by the firm or business?
• Audits performed, and excerpts that may have been included.
• Business registration documents shown (fake or legitimate).
• How were people recruited to participate?
• Public warnings and announcements prior to the event.

Don't Include:

• Any wording which directly states or implies that the business is/was illegitimate, or that a vulnerability existed.
• Anything that wasn't reasonably knowable at the time of the event.

There could be more than one section here. If the same platform is involved with multiple incidents, then it can be linked to a main article page.

The Reality

This sections is included if a case involved deception or information that was unknown at the time. Examples include:

• When the service was actually started (if different than the "official story").
• Who actually ran a service and their own personal history.
• How the service was structured behind the scenes. (For example, there was no "trading bot".)
• Details of what audits reported and how vulnerabilities were missed during auditing.

What Happened

The specific events of the loss and how it came about. What actually happened to cause the loss and some of the events leading up to it.

Key Event Timeline - AutoShark Finance Flash Loan Attack

Date	Event	Description
October 29th, 2021	Main Event	Expand this into a brief description of what happened and the impact. If multiple lines are necessary, add them here.

Technical Details

This section includes specific detailed technical analysis of any security breaches which happened. What specific software vulnerabilities contributed to the problem and how were they exploited?

Total Amount Lost

The total amount lost has been estimated at $2,000,000 USD.

How much was lost and how was it calculated? If there are conflicting reports, which are accurate and where does the discrepancy lie?

Immediate Reactions

How did the various parties involved (firm, platform, management, and/or affected individual(s)) deal with the events? Were services shut down? Were announcements made? Were groups formed?

Ultimate Outcome

What was the end result? Was any investigation done? Were any individuals prosecuted? Was there a lawsuit? Was any tracing done?

Total Amount Recovered

There do not appear to have been any funds recovered in this case.

What funds were recovered? What funds were reimbursed for those affected users?

Ongoing Developments

What parts of this case are still remaining to be concluded?

Individual Prevention Policies

No specific policies for individual prevention have yet been identified in this case.

For the full list of how to protect your funds as an individual, check our Prevention Policies for Individuals guide.

Platform Prevention Policies

Policies for platforms to take to prevent this situation have not yet been selected in this case.

For the full list of how to protect your funds as a financial service, check our Prevention Policies for Platforms guide.

Regulatory Prevention Policies

No specific regulatory policies have yet been identified in this case.

For the full list of regulatory policies that can prevent loss, check our Prevention Policies for Regulators guide.