The world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, was reportedly hacked overnight on October 30. The platform said the incident may have been caused by the compromise of an employee's laptop. According to the company, the breach allowed attackers to gain access to an internal service container and carry out unauthorized withdrawals.
Preliminary estimates put the losses at $6.3 billion. "Binance will cover all losses. As a precautionary measure, all deposits and withdrawals have been temporarily suspended while our team conducts security checks, freezes funds and works with law enforcement," the company said.
Binance pledged to publish a technical report on the incident and updated reserve figures once the investigation is complete. As of October 1, the exchange held more than $54 billion worth of Bitcoin alone, equivalent to over 691,000 coins. More than 500 cryptocurrencies were also traded on the platform.
The incident could become the largest cryptocurrency theft in history. Analysts suspect that North Korean hackers linked to the Lazarus Group may be behind the attack. Meanwhile, Circle and Tether have reportedly frozen nearly $1 billion in assets amid suspicions of a possible Binance-related hack.
Binance has suspended withdrawals from its wallets and plans to resume the service within 48 hours, following the completion of security checks. Here we are to serve you with news right now. It does not cost much, but worth your attention.
Choose to support open, independent, quality journalism and subscribe on a monthly basis. By subscribing to our online newspaper, you can have full digital access to all news, analysis, and much more. You can also follow AzerNEWS on Twitter @AzerNewsAz or Facebook @AzerNewsNewspaper
Extract — continue reading at the source.
