CONNECT WITH US
Tech

Tech

The $6.3 Billion Binance Hack Was Pulled Off in Just 20 Minutes

Wired logo

Published on

Add as a preferred source on Google
The $6.3 Billion Binance Hack Was Pulled Off in Just 20 Minutes

Cryptocurrency firms and investigators are racing to freeze and track down billions of dollars of stolen digital cash following what appears to be the largest crypto heist of all time. On Thursday, starting at around 4pm ET, hackers started quickly siphoning around $6.3 billion in cryptocurrencies, spread across multiple blockchains, from wallets belonging to crypto exchange Binance.

Following the theft, Binance almost immediately suspended all deposits and withdrawals from its services as part of its investigation into the hack and says it is working to identify who was behind the breach. The company, along with other crypto firms, says it has so far been able to freeze around half of the stolen funds—essentially stopping hackers moving the money further or trying to cash it out. Much of the remaining crypto may not be possible to freeze, however.

Three crypto tracing firms have been quick to link the attack potentially to North Korean hackers. “We think North Korea is likely responsible,” Tom Robinson, chief scientist and cofounder of Elliptic, tells WIRED. “If North Korea is behind it, this one theft would almost double everything the regime has stolen in crypto to date.”

The majority of the stolen crypto was taken in a period of around 20 minutes on October 29, according to analysis by crypto tracing firm TRM Labs. Wallets belonging to Binance across at least ten blockchains—including Ethereum, Bitcoin, Tron and Solana—were drained and sent to multiple addresses controlled by a single attacker, according to TRM’s analysis . “Preparation began at least 36 hours before the theft,” TRM says in a blog post.


Source link

Disclaimer

We strive to uphold the highest ethical standards in all of our reporting and coverage. We TheMorningPulse.fyi want to be transparent with our readers about any potential conflicts of interest that may arise in our work. It's possible that some of the investors we feature may have connections to other businesses, including competitors or companies we write about. However, we want to assure our readers that this will not have any impact on the integrity or impartiality of our reporting. We are committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news and information to our audience, and we will continue to uphold our ethics and principles in all of our work. Thank you for your trust and support.