Binance Suffers Biggest Crypto Hack In History With $6.3 Billion Affected [UPDATE] (yahoo.com) 59
UPDATE 10/30/26: Binance has temporarily suspended customer withdrawals after suffering what investigators say is the biggest crypto hack in history. According to Binance CEO Yi He, the company estimates roughly $6.3 billion in funds were impacted, with roughly $3 billion in assets frozen on-chain so far. Rest assured, "your money is safe, and we're covering every loss," said co-CEO Richard Teng in a LinkedIn post.
"This was a complex attack," said Teng. "The attacker also used a self-destruct mechanism that destroyed tooling and tracers, making it more difficult for us to trace." From a report: Teng said the incident was not carried out by one person. While the initial investigation indicated the involvement of a compromised laptop, further digging revealed additional points of breach. [...] Blockchain analysis firms TRM Labs and Elliptic have linked the theft to North Korean hackers, with TRM attributing it "with high confidence" to a group known as TraderTraitor, the same group responsible for last year's Bybit hack.
Elliptic estimated Friday that about 44% of the stolen assets have been frozen, with stablecoins accounting for nearly all of those funds. The firm estimated that attackers still controlled over $3 billion in crypto that token issuers cannot directly freeze.
The hackers appear to have compromised Binance's wallet-signing infrastructure, allowing them to authorize transactions that drained billions of dollars in cryptocurrency across multiple blockchains, according to the firms. Binance, in its preliminary stage, has conducted an investigation into the hack, which suggests the incident may have begun with a compromised engineer's laptop. The exchange added that it has found no evidence that wallet passwords were leaked. Below is the original story from yesterday, Oct. 29th.
Binance is investigating a potential hack after more than $2 billion in crypto was drained from one of its wallets into a new external account, with Blockaid estimating nearly $3.3 billion was moved.
"Our teams are aware of reports of a potential security issue and are actively investigating," said Binance on X.
"User funds are safe," said Binance founder CZ. "It does look like a hack on Binance. Appreciate the quick freeze from Tether (~$971m) and Circle (~$823m). I don't manage Binance anymore, but as a shareholder, I expect all user funds will be fully covered."
At around the same time, crypto-based prediction market Polymarket reported its own security incident that wiped out around $2.7 million in user funds.
"This was a complex attack," said Teng. "The attacker also used a self-destruct mechanism that destroyed tooling and tracers, making it more difficult for us to trace." From a report: Teng said the incident was not carried out by one person. While the initial investigation indicated the involvement of a compromised laptop, further digging revealed additional points of breach. [...] Blockchain analysis firms TRM Labs and Elliptic have linked the theft to North Korean hackers, with TRM attributing it "with high confidence" to a group known as TraderTraitor, the same group responsible for last year's Bybit hack.
Elliptic estimated Friday that about 44% of the stolen assets have been frozen, with stablecoins accounting for nearly all of those funds. The firm estimated that attackers still controlled over $3 billion in crypto that token issuers cannot directly freeze.
The hackers appear to have compromised Binance's wallet-signing infrastructure, allowing them to authorize transactions that drained billions of dollars in cryptocurrency across multiple blockchains, according to the firms. Binance, in its preliminary stage, has conducted an investigation into the hack, which suggests the incident may have begun with a compromised engineer's laptop. The exchange added that it has found no evidence that wallet passwords were leaked. Below is the original story from yesterday, Oct. 29th.
Binance is investigating a potential hack after more than $2 billion in crypto was drained from one of its wallets into a new external account, with Blockaid estimating nearly $3.3 billion was moved.
"Our teams are aware of reports of a potential security issue and are actively investigating," said Binance on X.
"User funds are safe," said Binance founder CZ. "It does look like a hack on Binance. Appreciate the quick freeze from Tether (~$971m) and Circle (~$823m). I don't manage Binance anymore, but as a shareholder, I expect all user funds will be fully covered."
At around the same time, crypto-based prediction market Polymarket reported its own security incident that wiped out around $2.7 million in user funds.
And this is why ... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Trickle out theory (Score:2)
I also disagree, I think this kind of hacking is important for the trickle out theory. It redistributes money into the economy that would be frozen in digital assets helping to support the economy.
Private property Social Justice. Every time. (Score:2)
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If people choose to buy crypto they should be able to do so and keep the assets they earned and bought with their earnings.
No. I mean, we shouldn't steal it from them, but they should be subject to taxation at a minimum at the level they would have paid if they had real investments in the economy just so that things are fair to everybody. More importantly, when they choose crypto, they are 100% responsible for any losses and nobody else has any responsibility to make sure that they get to keep their stuff. That's entirely on them and any service providers they choose to pay for themselves. It makes sense for actual US dollars o
Re:Trickle out theory (Score:4, Insightful)
Hang on - are you saying you are pro-theft because it's wealth redistribution?
What the fuck?
Re:Trickle out theory (Score:4, Interesting)
Hang on - are you saying you are pro-theft because it's wealth redistribution?
What the fuck?
If the blockchain is the final arbiter of ownership, is this really theft. I am happy to admit that it can be abuse of someone else's computer, which would make it illegal, but the blockchain is specifically designed to opt out of other normal legal controls. Having made that choice, suddenly coming back and demanding that we call it "theft" in a traditional legal sense, when there's no such clear definition within bitcoin, is very weird.
And yes, I agree that bitcoin that North Korea and/or Russia have taken should be transferred to someone else if the NSA or some other hacking organization can find a way to do that. However, that applies also to any bitcoin that those governments have acquired through trade or other more traditional means. Also, if they do manage to do that, the NSA or others should keep the bitcoin and sell it on the open market. There is no reasonable way to say that it has an owner that it should be returned to.
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Cops just have to be on the watch for someone withdrawing $2.2B from a 7-11 crypto-ATM.
Re:And this is why ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed. The problem is system immanent cannot be fixed. The whole idea of "deregulated finance" is broken and cannot work. The reason why banking is so regulated is because it had severe problems before. The crapto-bros are in denial about history and are currently repeating it.
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Moving fastly
Re:And this is why ... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are storing your cryptocurrency in a device that you cannot audit you likely already lost your money the moment you bought those crypto tokens. Whether the keys are stored locally or in the cloud does not make any difference.
Many us of here write software. I know I can't "trust the code" in a purchased binary device.
"Trust the code" is a tagline of cryptocurrency hucksters.
Hell, we can't trust that our TV sets aren't spying on us 24/7.
Crypto is largely a spin on the classic ponzi scheme and money laundering.
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If you are storing your cryptocurrency in a device that you cannot audit you likely already lost your money the moment you bought those crypto tokens.
Hence a dedicated device, used for nothing else. A dirt cheap chromebook, that old computer or phone that has had a factory wipe. Never your day-to-day computer or phone. Much like the computer or phone you should be using for online banking.
Whether the keys are stored locally or in the cloud does not make any difference.
I did not say avoid the cloud. I said avoid 3rd parties handling your wallet.
Crypto is largely a spin on the classic ponzi scheme and money laundering.
Not at all. There is no interest or dividends where earlier investors are paid with recent investor's deposits. The preceding is a ponzi scheme.
Crypto is the "Greater Fool" theory, where one b
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If you are storing your cryptocurrency in a device that you cannot audit you likely already lost your money the moment you bought those crypto tokens.
Hence a dedicated device, used for nothing else.
Or maybe even a nice hardware wallet? Like this one here?
https://www.bleepingcomputer.c... [bleepingcomputer.com]
Face it, crapto is stupid. Banks are regulated strongly for really good reasons.
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Face it, crapto is stupid
Block chains are interesting, sadly they get too closely associated with crypto. Which is just one use case.
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No argument about that. Blockchains have good uses.
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You think Binance is not using dedicated secret storage? I guess its possible for them do store secrets in an excel file on a SMB share or something, but I doubt it.
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You think Binance is not using dedicated secret storage?
A 3rd party exchange is not vulnerable only through key theft. Servers themselves have been taken and crypto lost.
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> that old computer or phone that has had a factory wipe
Don't trust old phones with too much value.
There are hardware bugs on Bluetooth, WiFi, and SS7 that are fairly easy to hack with the right setup and SS7 especially is built into the same baseband controller so main memory can be exfiltrated over cellular even without an active SIM.
Keeping it turned off most of the time reduces the attack surface, of course.
A few phones do better - switchable modems, etc. but very few and even some phones that meet G
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Crypto is largely a spin on the classic ponzi scheme and money laundering.
Clearly. But you know what else we learn from classic Ponzi schemes and more modern versions? "There is a sucker born every minute" is literally true and these people keep the scams going.
Re: And this is why ... (Score:2)
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Like a wallet with a surreptitiously installed cellular modem provided by what was an "approved vendor?" Which would eventually be used to siphon off holdings? Nah, no thanks dumbass
The same precautions as online banking. A dedicated device, used for nothing else. A dirt cheap chromebook, that old computer or phone that has had a factory wipe. Never your day-to-day computer or phone.
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Not your keys, not.your crypto.
rug pull (Score:5, Funny)
$ rug pull
Access Denied.
$sudo rug pull
Transferring $5.6B...
Re: rug pull (Score:1)
eesh wish I had mod points : )
Grandpa, tell me again about those bank-robberies (Score:4, Funny)
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If they catch the guys who did this then yeah we will know but if they haven't caught these guys in a few months then it's either North Korea or one of the other nation states or it's just money laundering. Honestly the money la
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Crypto makes it much easier. The crypto can be laundered through mixing, and moved to countries that won't extradite.
In this case they are blaming North Korea, which if accurate means that the money will simply be traded with China and Russia.
Had To Happen (Score:3)
Zhao needed some walking around money.
Oh no (Score:1)
Pardon me? (Score:1)
Funds Are Safu (Score:2)
Oh gosh. That's too bad. (Score:2)
Crapto. Always good for a laugh. (Score:2)
They are making all the dumb mistakes the banking system made a long time ago, just larger and more pathetic.
"I expect all user funds will be fully covered" (Score:4, Insightful)
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But I've heard that in crypto, often 1 >= 2...
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When the Crypto Chart says 1 > 2, you are supposed to double-down and HODL.
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That was my thinking too - there's no possible way they can recover from this, is there? No one has that sort of reserve, so either customer money is lost and won't be refunded, or else binance has to refill the coffers, which it simply won't be able to do.
This leads me on to another point. If one persons laptop has access to multiple billions of company money, you've got a significant problem. If any computer has to have access to big funds, for whatever reason, then it should be hidden away in a secure ro
The funds were frozen? (Score:1)
I guess I don't know enough about bitcoin and it's many cousins, but wasn't the idea of this digital currency stuff to be immune to things like payment tracing and freezing (impounding?) of accounts?
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Some chains allow freezing specific transactions. It may or may not require a consensus of validators. It's rather controversial among crypto enthusiasts.
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Controversial?
Seems like it eliminates the whole point of the project.
Non-revocable payments were supposed to be the objective, are they not?
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Cryptocurrency has as many objectives as there are nerds involved in it. They change whenever one isn't working out so well too.
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Also smart contract defined tokens may allow tokens to be frozen per the terms of the contract.
other hacks, etc (Score:4, Informative)
Multiple exchanges were hit. Binance, Bitget, Bybit, Kucoin, and Swiftx. Also some details on how the Binance hack might have gone down:
https://news.bitcoin.com/secur... [bitcoin.com]
Made the big time at last. (Score:3)
The most that traditional currency banking could muster up for single instance losses was a measly $1 billion. This trounces that record. Well done. I'll just keep my money elsewhere. Where it's.... you know. Money.
Play stupid games win stupid prices. (Score:3)
What? Wait! (Score:2)
"User funds are safe" followed by "I expect all user funds will be fully covered."
It seems to me that at least one - or both - of these sentences isn't right.
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Stablecoins blocked (Score:2)
That should tell you right now that if you're involved in this crypto scam crap that you shouldn't be trusting stablecoins as they are by design made to fuck you over at the whim of a centralized authority.
This smells like an inside job (Score:3)
If that's the case, it should surprise exactly nobody, for two reasons. First, the sleazebags who run crypto "companies" hire other sleazebags because they have no choice; nobody with a shred of integrity or ethics would work there. Second, because the entire move-fast-break-things attitude coupled with their disdain for the mechanisms of traditional finance has led them to construct highly vulnerable systems that lack adequate compartmentalization.
This doesn't rule out North Korean involvement -- if I were them, I'd have placed my own people inside every major crypto operation a long time ago. It's always nice when your adversaries are paying part of your attack expenses.
"Bank" run? (Score:1)
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Burying the lead there a bit (Score:2)
Is no one going to address the comment "44% of the stolen assets have been frozen"? I mean wasn't the whole idea about the blockchain supposed to be that no one can control your money? Now suddenly token issuers can freeze assets?
Let that sink in for a moment, and then ask yourself how this is any different from traditional banking at this point (except that it's controlled by techbros and not a legal framework).
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counterfeit (Score:2)
Sounds like an inside job to me... (Score:2)