{"id":228973,"date":"2026-01-14T01:23:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T07:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/malicious-chrome-extension-steals-mexc-api-keys-by-masquerading-as-trading-tool"},"modified":"2026-01-14T01:23:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T07:23:27","slug":"malicious-chrome-extension-steals-mexc-api-keys-by-masquerading-as-trading-tool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/malicious-chrome-extension-steals-mexc-api-keys-by-masquerading-as-trading-tool","title":{"rendered":"Malicious Chrome Extension Steals MEXC API Keys by Masquerading as Trading Tool"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/malicious-chrome-extension-steals-mexc-api-keys-by-masquerading-as-trading-tool.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a malicious Google Chrome extension that\u2019s capable of stealing API keys associated with MEXC, a centralized cryptocurrency exchange (CEX) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mexc.co\/en-IN\/learn\/article\/mexc-restricted-countries-complete-list-of-prohibited-limited-regions\/1\">available in over 170 countries<\/a>, while masquerading as a tool to automate trading on the platform.<\/p>\n<p>The extension, named MEXC API Automator (ID: pppdfgkfdemgfknfnhpkibbkabhghhfh), has 29 downloads and is still available on the Chrome Web Store as of writing. It was first published on September 1, 2025, by a developer named \u201cjorjortan142.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe extension programmatically creates new MEXC API keys, enables withdrawal permissions, hides that permission in the user interface (UI), and exfiltrates the resulting API key and secret to a hardcoded Telegram bot controlled by the threat actor,\u201d Socket security researcher Kirill Boychenko said in an analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a malicious Google Chrome extension that\u2019s capable of stealing API keys associated with MEXC, a centralized cryptocurrency exchange (CEX) available in over 170 countries, while masquerading as a tool to automate trading on the platform. The extension, named MEXC API Automator (ID: pppdfgkfdemgfknfnhpkibbkabhghhfh), has 29 downloads and is still [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1761,34,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cryptocurrencies","category-cybercrime-malcode","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228973\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}