DeFi bridging Protocol, pNetwork, is the most recent protocol to be targeted by a cyber attack.
An unknown hacker has stolen about $12.7 million worth of tokenized Bitcoin from the Binance Smart Chain-based cross-chain platform.
According to a Twitter thread published by pNetwork on September 20, the hacker exploited a bug in the network’s codebase. As a result, they got away with 277 BTC from the exchange. They also made off with the majority of the network’s collateral, pNetwork added.
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
In the meantime, pNetwork has offered the hacker $1.5 million in exchange for the stolen funds. This value is about 11.5% of the funds. There is currently no information on whether the attacker responded to this offer or not.
4/N To the black hat hacker. Although this is a long shot, we're offering a clean $1,500,000 bounty if funds are returned.
Finding vulnerabilities is part of the game unfortunately, but we all want DeFi ecosystem to continue growing, returning funds is a step in that direction
— pNetwork
At the time of writing, the latest update from the protocol’s Twitter account stated the existence of a proposed fix waiting for review.
Similar Smart-Chain Hacks
pNetwork is not the first cross-chain platform to be exploited. In July, decentralized exchange THORChain lost $7.6 million in a hack. Just a week later, the exchange was hacked again for around $8 million. The hacker, however, promised to return the funds for a 10% bounty.
DeFi protocol, Poly Network was also involved in a record-breaking hack in early August. The hacker transferred over $600 million in assets to Polygon, Ethereum, and Binance Smart Chain (BSC) addresses. Although, the hacker eventually returned almost all the stolen funds.
Related Reading | Poly Network Hacker Returns Stolen Funds After Requesting A Multisig Wallet
This year alone, there have been several other Binance Smart Chain hacks. This list includes PancakeBunny, Cream Finance, bEarn, Bogged Finance, Uranium Finance, Meerkat Finance, SafeMoon, Spartan Protocol, BurgerSwap, and Belt Finance.
About pNetwork DeFi Protocol
Decentralized finance (DeFi) is a blockchain-based form of finance that does not rely on central financial intermediaries or traditional banks to offer traditional financial instruments. Instead, it uses smart contracts on blockchains.
Total DeFi market cap drops to $117.9B | Source: Crypto Total DeFi Market Cap on TradingView.com
pNetwork enables the transfer of assets into +10 supported blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, and many more. According to pNetwork’s website, the total value of cryptocurrencies locked in the protocol’s cross-chain bridges is about $190 million. Fortunately, most of them are safe since the hack only affected pBTC tokens on BSC.
Featured image from @pNetworkDeFi on Twitter, Chart from TradingView.com