Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, has raised the alarm over a potential hack involving $6.3 billion and suspended deposits and withdrawals on its platform.
The crypto trading giant confirmed in a statement on Friday that it launched an investigation into the “security issue”.
“Binance’s initial investigation suggests that the security incident may involve a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop, which allowed an attacker to gain access to a service container and submit unauthorised withdrawal transactions,” the crypto trading platform said. “We have found no evidence of any wallet private key leak. We will share a detailed technical post-mortem once the investigation is complete and the facts are fully verified.”
Binance said around $6.3 billion was affected, and it worked with its partners to freeze the assets.
“The estimated total impact sits at around $6.3B. We have worked with blockchain partners to freeze affected assets, with ~$3 billion frozen on-chain so far,” Binance said. “Binance will cover all losses from the SAFU fund and the company’s funds. User funds are safe. We will also publish an updated Proof of Reserves once the remediation is complete.”
The crypto trading platform said it took immediate precautionary measures, including “temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals while security checks are completed; revoked the affected address authorisation; engaged law enforcement and blockchain intelligence partners to trace and recover funds”.
“Our teams are working around the clock to resolve this issue safely and thoroughly. We are working closely with our law enforcement partners to confirm the identity of these criminals and bring them to justice,” stated the crypto firm.