DeFi Protocol Cream Finance Hacked for Second Time This Year

The attacked drained just over $25 million of AMP tokens and ether.

By Eliza Gkritsi

Aug 30, 2021 at 8:08 a.m. UTC

Updated Aug 30, 2021 at 9:27 p.m. UTC

Hacker (Azamat E/Unsplash, modified by CoinDesk)

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Eliza Gkritsi

Eliza Gkritsi is CoinDesk's crypto mining reporter based in Asia.

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Cream Finance, a decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol, suffered its second flash loan attack this year, with the perpetrators draining more than $25 million.

The attack was first reported by PeckShield in a tweet early on Monday. The blockchain security firm pointed to Ethereum records showing at least $6 million were drained at 5:44 UTC.
Cream Finance later confirmed the hack in a tweet, adding that 418,311,571 AMP tokens and 1,308.09 ether had been stolen, bringing the total value of the hack to just over $25 million. PeckShield updated its estimate, saying the hacker siphoned off about $18.8 million.
The root cause of the incident was lending of AMP tokens, Cream Finance Product Manager Eason Wu said on Discord. Other assets on Cream are secure, he said.
AMP token contracts allowed for a reentrancy attack, the same type of exploit used in the infamous DAO hack.
Flash loan attacks take advantage of one of DeFi’s most controversial features: loans that do not require collateral.
Cream Finance lost $37 million in the attack earlier this year.

UPDATE (AUG. 30, 9:13 UTC): Updates value, adds details from Cream Finance tweet.

UPDATE (AUG. 30, 10:22 UTC) Adds updated estimate from PeckShield.

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Eliza Gkritsi

Eliza Gkritsi is CoinDesk's crypto mining reporter based in Asia.

Follow @egreechee on Twitter

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Eliza Gkritsi

Eliza Gkritsi is CoinDesk's crypto mining reporter based in Asia.

Follow @egreechee on Twitter