[Uniswap v4 Hooks: More Than Half Are Malicious—DEX Aggregator 0x Warns of Asset Shrinkage Risk During Settlement]
Latest data from the DEX aggregator 0x shows that the proportion of malicious activity in the Uniswap v4 Hooks ecosystem has already surpassed the safety threshold. As of September 11, 0x analyzed 84,163 Hooks across six chains and found that only 19.4% were deemed safe, 54.2% were flagged as malicious, and another 26.4% were suspected to be malicious. These malicious Hooks exploit flaws in the mechanism: they offer seemingly better prices during quote requests, but then tamper with the execution price at the actual settlement stage, causing users’ final received amounts to shrink by up to 50% compared with the quoted prices. This attack pattern is carried out with the help of aggregators, wallets, and trading applications, directly putting users’ asset security at risk. 0x states that this year it has routed 81.92 million transactions with a trading volume of $42.67 billion, of which about 70% involve Uniswap liquidity. In response to the surge of malicious Hooks, 0x is intercepting malicious pools through security detection and liquidity-pool review mechanisms. This incident highlights new security risks faced by decentralized trading infrastructure after introducing a plugin mechanism, which may affect users’ trust in the Uniswap ecosystem and DEX aggregators. The market should watch for the rollout rate of subsequent security auditing tools, Uniswap’s official response to the Hooks mechanism, and progress in cleaning up malicious pools.
Latest data from the DEX aggregator 0x shows that the proportion of malicious activity in the Uniswap v4 Hooks ecosystem has already surpassed the safety threshold. As of September 11, 0x analyzed 84,163 Hooks across six chains and found that only 19.4% were deemed safe, 54.2% were flagged as malicious, and another 26.4% were suspected to be malicious. These malicious Hooks exploit flaws in the mechanism: they offer seemingly better prices during quote requests, but then tamper with the execution price at the actual settlement stage, causing users’ final received amounts to shrink by up to 50% compared with the quoted prices. This attack pattern is carried out with the help of aggregators, wallets, and trading applications, directly putting users’ asset security at risk. 0x states that this year it has routed 81.92 million transactions with a trading volume of $42.67 billion, of which about 70% involve Uniswap liquidity. In response to the surge of malicious Hooks, 0x is intercepting malicious pools through security detection and liquidity-pool review mechanisms. This incident highlights new security risks faced by decentralized trading infrastructure after introducing a plugin mechanism, which may affect users’ trust in the Uniswap ecosystem and DEX aggregators. The market should watch for the rollout rate of subsequent security auditing tools, Uniswap’s official response to the Hooks mechanism, and progress in cleaning up malicious pools.