Flash Loan Liquidations
Flash loan liquidations are a specialized strategy where an attacker uses a flash loan to borrow massive amounts of capital to trigger the liquidation of undercollateralized positions on a protocol. The attacker uses the borrowed funds to manipulate the price of an asset on an exchange, forcing the protocol's oracle to report a price that makes a position appear insolvent.
Once the liquidation is triggered, the attacker collects the liquidation fee or profit from the collateral sale. The flash loan is then repaid within the same transaction block, ensuring the attacker carries no long-term capital risk.
This exploit highlights the extreme leverage available in DeFi and the risks of relying on a single price source. It forces protocols to implement multi-source oracles to prevent manipulation.