Just over a week after Tether was the victim of a $30 million hack, Binance, one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, has reportedly been hacked, resulting in $570 million worth of its BNB token being stolen by hackers. According to an announcement by the company, hackers were able to get away with 7,000 bitcoins and 513 million BNB tokens by using a variety of techniques, including phishing, viruses and other attacks. While user funds were not affected by the breach, trading services have been suspended indefinitely until a further notice has been issued.
Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange, momentarily shut down its blockchain network after thieves stole BNB tokens valued about $570 million.
Late on Thursday, Binance said that a cross-chain bridge connecting with its BNB Chain had been compromised, allowing hackers to remove BNB coins from the network. Tools that enable the movement of tokens from one blockchain to another are known as cross-chain bridges.
While a team of engineers looks into the incident, the business claimed it had collaborated with transaction validators to freeze the production of new blocks on BSC and suspend all transaction processing.
By trading volume, Binance is the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world.
“Extra BNB were produced as a consequence of an exploit on the BSC Token Hub cross-chain bridge. The BSC has been temporarily suspended, we have requested, stated Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, in a tweet on Thursday night.
“The problem is now under control. Your money is secure. We apologise for the inconvenience and will inform you as necessary.
Since then, BNB Chain has resumed operations.
2 million BNB tokens in all, or $570 million at today’s rates, were stolen from the network by hackers, according to a blog post published on Friday by Binance’s BNB Chain.
According to BNB Chain, the attack was made possible “via a smart forging of the low level proof into one common library.”
The total amount removed, according to an earlier estimate from the corporation, was between $100 million and $110 million.
With the assistance of its security partners, the business claimed to have been able to freeze $7 million in assets.
According to statistics from CoinMarketCap, the price of BNB dropped by more than 3% on Friday morning to $285.36 per coin.
Binance initially created BNB Chain, formerly known as Binance Chain, in 2019. It has a native coin called BNB that may be exchanged or utilised in games and other applications, similar to other blockchains.
It is the most recent in a string of significant breaches that have targeted cross-chain bridges, which are a favourite target of cybercriminals due to instances of poor engineering.
According to statistics from blockchain analytics company Chainalysis, hacks on cross-chain bridges have cost users a total of almost $1.4 billion since the year 2022.
The value of the cryptocurrency market has fallen by over $2 trillion from the pinnacle of a ferocious rise in 2020–2021, making it a difficult year for the sector. Market mood has been significantly influenced by the collapse of $60 billion blockchain startup Terra and a deteriorating macroeconomic climate.
