Stars Arena Resilience: Overcoming Challenges

Stars Arena, a burgeoning Web3-based social media application leveraging the power of Avalanche, proudly announced their successful acquisition of funds to bridge the financial chasm caused by a recent exploit on October 6th. The team enthusiastically shared their commitment to subjecting their smart contract to a comprehensive security audit before considering reactivation.

Taking to X (previously known as Twitter) for their announcement, the Stars Arena team communicated, "We are pleased to inform you that we have effectively mobilized the necessary resources to address the repercussions of the breach. Furthermore, we have engaged a dedicated white hat development team to swiftly conduct a thorough security assessment of our esteemed platform."

Important news: we have secured the resources to close the gap caused by the exploit.

Additionally, a special white hat development team is coming in to rapidly review the security of the platform.

We will re-open the contract with all the funds in full after a full security…

— Stars Arena (@starsarenacom) October 7, 2023

Initially acknowledging the breach on October 6th, Stars Arena urged their valued users to exercise caution and refrain from depositing funds during their meticulous investigation into the unfortunate security breach.

Security firms with expertise in blockchain, including SlowMist, diligently tracked and reported on the hacker's actions, revealing the alarming drain of 266,103 Avalanche (AVAX) tokens, valued at nearly $3 million. At the time, each token was priced at $10.14, underscoring the severity of the breach. Subsequently, the audacious hacker proceeded to transfer the ill-gotten funds to the Fixed Float crypto exchange.

????SlowMist Security Alert????@starsarenacom appears to have been stolen due to a major security breach in its smart contract, please do not deposit funds.

Currently, the hacker transferred 266,103 $AVAX to the address (0xa2Eb...ad7A). The address (0xa2Eb...ad7A) transferred… https://t.co/BtkRCTk8CK pic.twitter.com/o0YrX8ZOCK

— SlowMist (@SlowMist_Team) October 7, 2023

In the wake of the breach, a few short hours later, the Stars Arena team extended their sincere apologies for the unfortunate exploit and also disclosed a distressing distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack directed at their website.

"We extend our profound apologies for the unfortunate incident. Our smart contract suffered an exploit, resulting in the depletion of funds. Concurrently, our website is grappling with a DDoS attack. We are actively working towards a prompt resolution to ensure the recovery of everyone's funds and propel Arena's steadfast progress," the team expressed earnestly.

Looking forward, in a communication on October 7th through X Spaces, the team reiterated the paramount importance of conducting a meticulous and comprehensive security review prior to considering the reactivation of the smart contract.

Although the exact timeline for the anticipated reactivation of the project remains shrouded in uncertainty, the team reassured their esteemed community that this highly-anticipated event would transpire "very soon."

This incident unfortunately marked the second instance of an exploit targeting Stars Arena within the span of just one week.

On October 5th, Stars Arena had promptly and efficiently addressed a vulnerability after an audacious hacker siphoned off $2,000 worth of AVAX from the platform.

In the face of mounting criticism from the members of Crypto Twitter regarding the platform's security posture, the Stars Arena team bravely called out what they termed "coordinated fud" and steadfastly affirmed their unwavering commitment to press forward and surmount these challenges.

Stars Arena joins a rapidly expanding roster of social finance platforms that have emerged and gained momentum since Friend.tech made its notable entry into the market in the month of August.

You might also like: Crypto Security Triumphs and Challenges