PancakeSwap has suffered a breach of its Chinese account on blogging platform X. The account, PancakeSwapzh, was hacked and used by scammers to promote a fake memecoins known as Mr Pancake.
The exchange platform acknowledged the breach and added that it is working closely with the X team to resolve the issues and recover its account. PancakeSwap has also urged its users to disregard information from the account and avoid any form of engagement until an official memo is passed to that effect.
CAKE jumps 12% amid PancakeSwap X account breach
After the announcement of the hack, the native token of the platform CAKE surged to over 12%, despite the news being a negative one. The token has been volatile, trading around $4.34, a number that represents a 10.777% increase in the past day. The token also recorded an intraday high of 44.52 before stabilizing to trade around $4.34. According to market data, the token currently boasts a market cap of $1.49 billion.
The latest breach of the PancakeSwap account comes after a recent hack of the official BNB Chain X account. Changpeng Zhao, during the announcement of the breach, urged users to refrain from clicking on any link posted by the account while they were carrying out their investigation and trying to get the account back. The account has since been restored, but investigations are still ongoing to ascertain the cause of the breach.
The total loss from the BNB Chain account breach was about $8,000, with a single user losing up to $6,500 due to the malicious links posted by the scammers. Shān Zhang, Chief Information Security Officer at blockchain security firm SlowMist, said the popularity of Binance-affiliated ecosystems makes them prime targets for cybercriminals. He noted that the BNB meme coin market is hot lately, making it more lucrative for scammers to exploit the user base.
According to Zhang, weak security awareness among social media administrators is the leading cause of breaches. He noted that many account admins have poor security awareness and are highly susceptible to phishing. Zhang added that education and better credential management could prevent these incidents.
