How Does the Lack of a Central Order Book on an Automated Market Maker (AMM) DEX Change the Nature of Front-Running?

Traditional front-running involves exploiting knowledge of a pending order on a central order book. AMM DEXs, however, use liquidity pools and mathematical formulas to determine asset prices, not an order book.

Front-running on an AMM is a "sandwich attack" where the attacker places a buy order just before a large user's buy and a sell order immediately after. The attacker profits from the price impact caused by the victim's trade, exploiting the AMM's pricing formula rather than a bid/ask spread.