How to Protect Your Funds from Exploits with Stars Arena Patches

Crypto Apps Alerted of Attack on Stars Arena

Crypto apps and alerts on Twitter were abuzz when Lilitch.eth discovered a malicious attack on Stars Arena Web3 social media app on Avalanche, resulting in an estimated $2,000 loss. The attack was confirmed by the Stars Arena team, who referred to it as a “war” against the app.

Similar to Friend.tech, Stars Arena allows users to buy “shares” of tokenized assets issued by content creators. The app’s surge in activity saw Avalanche’s daily transaction count increase by over 186% from Oct. 3 to 4.

On Oct. 5, Lilitch.eth tweeted that “1.1 million dollars are being drained right now because of noob devs who couldn’t make a copy of Friend.tech that will work properly. If you hold ANY SHARES in StarsArena you should sell while you still can.” A screenshot of the smart contract showed approximately 107,329 AVAX (AVAX), worth over $1 million at the time.

Best Crypto Apps and SIM-Swap Attacks

In response, some users accused Lilitch.eth of “fudding” (spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt). For example, ZSwap developer Mork claimed that “no exploiter can profit from this because the gas to run the tx is higher than the Avax extracted” and that “they are proxy contracts – able to be updated.”

The Stars Arena team responded with a post on X stating that “THE EXPLOIT HAS BEEN FIXED.” It claimed that attackers had been spending $5 in gas to drain $1 from the best crypto apps in an attempt to destroy its credibility with “coordinated FUD.” The team held a Twitter Spaces event to explain to users what was happening, during which it stated that only around $2,000 had been lost in the attack.

Responding to the team’s post, Lilitch.eth denied that attackers had been spending $5 in gas to drain $1. “Nobody was spending 5$ to get 1$ from your TVL, chill,” they stated, claiming instead that attackers stopped whenever gas prices became too high to make the attack profitable. Lilitch.eth also denied waging “war” against the crypto app. In another post, they claimed to support the app now that it has been patched, stating, “The conflict was resolved, we are friend now. @starsarena to the moon.”

Friend.tech users have been facing a wave of SIM-swap attacks, leaving its users and those of similar crypto apps on edge. On Oct. 5, the Friend.tech team implemented a function to remove login methods to help combat the problem.