What Is a ‘Governance Attack’ in a DAO?
A governance attack is a malicious attempt to manipulate a DAO's voting system to pass a proposal that benefits the attacker at the expense of the protocol or its users. This can involve exploiting low voter turnout, temporarily acquiring a large amount of governance tokens (a "51% attack"), or passing a proposal to drain the treasury or grant the attacker special privileges.
The attacker uses the protocol's own legitimate governance mechanism to execute a financial exploit.
Glossar
Governance Mechanism
Framework ⎊ The governance mechanism, within cryptocurrency, options trading, and financial derivatives, establishes the rules and processes dictating decision-making and operational control.
Governance Attack
Exploitation ⎊ A Governance Attack within cryptocurrency, options, and derivatives contexts represents a manipulation of on-chain voting mechanisms to enact proposals detrimental to the protocol’s long-term viability or to extract value illegitimately.