Flash Loan Manipulation
Flash loan manipulation involves using uncollateralized, instant loans to acquire massive amounts of capital to influence a protocol's price oracle or liquidity pool. Because these loans must be repaid within the same transaction, the attacker can execute complex arbitrage or market manipulation strategies without risking their own capital.
This often exploits protocols that rely on spot prices from low-liquidity decentralized exchanges rather than time-weighted average prices. Such attacks highlight the dangers of market microstructure vulnerabilities in decentralized finance.
Auditors must stress-test protocols against these high-volume, short-duration capital injections to close potential coverage gaps. It represents a significant systemic risk to protocols that lack robust price discovery mechanisms.