Curve Finance DNS Hijacking
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On August 9th, 2022, some users of Curve Finance would have found that they were interacting with a malicious server and smart contract, which happened due to the DNS of the Curve Finance website being changed to point the domain name to a malicious server. The issue was corrected within a couple of hours, however DNS may take up to 48 hours to propagate. It is not clear how much was taken and what happened to the funds.
This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]
About Curve Finance
"Curve is a decentralized, UniSwap-like exchange for stablecoins. By focusing on stablecoins, it’s able to offer traders extremely low slippage, and liquidity providers enjoy little-to-no impermanent loss." "As is the case with many other decentralized finance protocols, Curve wasn’t fully decentralized at launch, run by the Curve team, led by Michael Egorov, the founder of NuCypher with a Ph.D. in Physics."
"Curve supports DAI, USDC, USDT, TUSD, BUSD and sUSD, as well as BTC pairs, and it lets you trade between these pairs extremely quickly and efficiently. When stablecoins or stable assets are involved, Curve’s prices are usually the best in the business."
“The key aspect of Curve is its market-making algorithm, which can provide 100-1000 times higher market depth than Uniswap or Balancer for the same total value locked. This dynamic helps both traders and liquidity providers because fundamental returns for those are higher than on Uniswap and alike by the same factor as the market depth.”
"In this exploit, the hackers modified the IP address translated by the DNS for http://curve.fi.
They provided the IP address of their own server and they created an identical web application."
"Unaware users thought they were using @CurveFinance, but they were approving transactions that were stealing their funds."
"The issue has been found and reverted. If you have approved any contracts on Curve in the past few hours, please revoke immediately. Please use http://curve.exchange for now until the propagation for http://curve.fi reverts to normal."
"Updates should have propagated for http://curve.fi everywhere by now, which means it should be safe to use"
"The contract that needs to be revoked is: 0x9eb5f8e83359bb5013f3d8eee60bdce5654e8881 If you have approved it please revoke it immediately on https://revoke.cash"
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.
| Date | Event | Description |
|---|---|---|
| August 9th, 2022 2:25:00 PM MDT | Samczsun Warning | Samczsun warns that "@CurveFinance frontend is compromised, do not use it until further notice!" |
| August 9th, 2022 2:43:00 PM MDT | Convex Finance Warning | Convex Finance warns users to "Please do not use the Curve front-end until further notice." |
| August 9th, 2022 3:27:00 PM MDT | Issue Found/Reverted | Curve Finance reports that "The issue has been found and reverted. If you have approved any contracts on Curve in the past few hours, please revoke immediately. Please use http://curve.exchange for now until the propagation for http://curve.fi reverts to normal" |
| August 9th, 2022 3:42:00 PM MDT | bcrypto Guide | Twitter user bcrypto publishes a guide explaining what happened and how users can protect themselves in the future. |
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 is unknown.
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.
References
- ↑ @CurveFinance Twitter (Aug 24, 2022)
- ↑ @CurveFinance Twitter (Aug 24, 2022)
- ↑ @CurveFinance Twitter (Aug 24, 2022)
- ↑ @HarukoTech Twitter (Jan 13, 2023)
- ↑ @KatieePCrypto Twitter (Jan 20, 2023)
- ↑ @DeFi_Pontifex Twitter (Nov 24, 2023)
- ↑ @brypto_sage Twitter (Nov 24, 2023)
- ↑ @ConvexFinance Twitter (Nov 24, 2023)
- ↑ @samczsun Twitter (Nov 24, 2023)
- ↑ @rhmaximalist Twitter (Nov 24, 2023)
- ↑ Malicious Smart Contracts — Richard Heart Maximalism (Nov 24, 2023)