Hackers appear relentless as they target the decentralized finance (DeFi) space yet again. Cross-chain DeFi platform pNetwork now becomes the latest protocol to be victimized by the criminals on Binance Smart Chain (BSC). The cybercriminals managed to steal near;y $12.7 million worth of bitcoin.
Based on a Twitter thread that was published by pNetwork on September 20, this incursion ended up with 277 pBTC being stolen from the exchange. Hackers ran off with most of the network’s collateral, as explained by pNetwork.
1/N We're sorry to inform the community that an attacker was able to leverage a bug in our codebase and attack pBTC on BSC, stealing 277 BTC (most of its collateral).
The other bridges were not affected. All other funds in the pNetwork are safe.
— pNetwork 🦜 (@pNetworkDeFi) September 19, 2021
The network noted that the attack was conducted through the exploitation of a bug in its codebase, stating that a fix is already underway. pNetwork also told the hacker to keep 11.5% of the stolen funds if they return the tokens that they stole.
“To the black hat hacker. Although this is a long shot, we’re offering a clean $1,500,000 bounty if funds are returned.”
At the time of publication, the team is yet to issue any further details on that exploit. The pNetwork team has not yet announced plans to reimburse the affected users. The platform facilitates the movement of digital assets across various blockchains.
As is the case with other wrapped token protocols, users can readily mint pBTC by depositing Bitcoin into a smart contract, enabling them to migrate the value of their BTC off the bitcoin network and onto EVM compatible chains.
The price of pNetwork’s governance token PNT token has lost 18% in the last 24 hours.
This platform is not the first cross-chain platform that has been exploited by hackers since decentralized exchange THORChain was also attacked in July and the criminals stole a total of $7.6 million worth of assets. Several weeks later, THORchain was hacked once more and $8 million was lost.
Fortunately for the platform, the hacker turned out to be a ‘white hat’, promising to return the funds for a 10% bounty.
Binance Smart Chain has already had more than its fair share of exploits so far in 2021. The ever-growing list of BSC exploits includes Uranium Finance, Meerkat Finance, PancakeBunny, Cream Finance, SafeMoon, Spartan Protocol, bEarn, Bogged Finance, Belt Finance, BurgerSwap, and now pNetwork.
In early August, Binance Smart Chain was involved in the record-breaking hack that saw $253 million lifted from BSC and over $600 million stolen in total. However, the benevolent hacker returned almost all of the funds.
