The theft of tokenized Bitcoin from the BSC-based cross-chain composability network pNetwork is estimated to have cost approximately $12.7 million.
On the Binance Smart Chain, the cross-chain decentralization platform pNetwork has become the latest protocol to be targeted by hackers, with the platform reporting a loss of approximately $12.7 million in Bitcoin.
According to a Twitter thread provided by pNetwork on Sept. 20, the incursion resulted in the theft of 277 pBTC from the exchange, which was later recovered. According to pNetwork, the hackers were able to make off with the majority of the network’s collateral.
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, 2021The team stated that the attack was carried out by taking advantage of a weakness in its coding, and that work on a patch is already underway. In addition, pNetwork gave the hacker the opportunity to keep 11.5 percent of the stolen assets if they returned the funds.
“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 this writing, the team had not released any additional information about the exploit. The pNetwork team has not yet decided whether or not it would compensate those who have been negatively impacted.
The pNetwork is a platform that allows for the movement of digital assets between different blockchains.
pBTC is created in the same way as other wrapped token protocols: users deposit Bitcoin into a smart contract, which allows them to move the value of their Bitcoin off of the Bitcoin network and onto EVM compatible chains, similar to other wrapped token protocols.
PNetwork’s governance token, the PNT token, has experienced an 18 percent drop in value over the last 24 hours.
pNetwork is not the first cross-chain platform to be used as a decentralized exchange, but it is the most recent. In July, THORChain was the victim of a hack that resulted in a $7.6 million loss.
Only a couple of weeks later, THORchain was hacked for an estimated $8 million a second time. Fortunately for the platform, the hacker turned out to be a “white hat,” pledging to return the funds in exchange for a 10 percent bounty on their heads.
Since the beginning of the year, the Binance Smart Chain has experienced more than its fair share of successes.
PancakeBunny, Cream Finance, bEarn, Bogged Finance, Uranium Finance, Meerkat Finance, SafeMoon, Spartan Protocol, BurgerSwap, Belt Finance, and now pNetwork are among the several BSC exploits that are becoming increasingly popular among hackers.
Binance Smart Chain was also a victim of the world-record-breaking Poly Network hack in early August, which resulted in the theft of $253 million from BSC and the theft of more than $600 million in total, however the benign hacker restored virtually all of the cash.
