Binance says $6.3 billion affected in what could be the biggest crypto hack
Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, said on Thursday that a security breach affected $6.3 billion in digital assets. About $3 billion has been frozen, and the exchange has suspended all deposits and withdrawals.
Binance is investigating a breach that analysts say could be the largest crypto theft on record. The exchange said $6.3 billion in digital assets were affected, the BBC reported. About half has been frozen, but the rest remains with the hackers. According to The Guardian, Binance gave no update on the remaining $3.3 billion. An initial investigation suggests the attack began with a hacked laptop belonging to a Binance engineer, the company said. This gave the attacker access to one of its systems and allowed unauthorised withdrawals. Miguel Morel, CEO of blockchain intelligence firm Arkham, told Reuters the incident began around 2030 GMT on Thursday and appeared to be ongoing. As a precaution, Binance has suspended all deposits and withdrawals and paused trading on its Binance Alpha platform. Binance said user funds are safe. Co-founder Yi He said the company would "cover all hacking losses". Founder Changpeng Zhao no longer runs the exchange. He posted on X that the incident "does look like a hack on Binance". He added that, as a shareholder, he expects all user funds to be fully covered. Binance also runs a reserve fund, held entirely in bitcoin, to protect users after security breaches. Two analytics firms, TRM Labs and Chainalysis, have linked the attack to a North Korean…
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