Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, claimed on Friday that it had been the victim of a hack. She estimates the scale of the theft at around $100 million.
According to Binance, the hackers managed to withdraw a total of two million BNB, the cryptocurrency issued by Binance, or about $580 million during Friday. However, they were only able to exploit a fraction of it, with the majority of the amount immediately blocked. Thanks to the quick reaction of the people responsible for validating the transactions, “the majority of the funds remained on the hackers’ address”, a Binance spokesperson told Agence France-Presse. On the other hand, around 100 million dollars have been stolen and have not yet been able to be recovered.
Earlier in the day, the boss of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, better known under the pseudonym CZ, had tried to reassure his community of users by assuring on Twitter, where he has seven million subscribers: “The problem is now under control. . […] Your funds are safe. We apologize for the inconvenience and will provide further updates accordingly. »
The hackers targeted the BSC Token Hub cross-chain bridge. A bridge is a service that allows a user to transfer cryptographic tokens from a blockchain (blockchain) to another. The Binance Smart Chain (BSC), to which the bridge targeted by the hackers is connected, was suspended for a few hours.
Computer attacks against inter-chain bridges have multiplied in recent months. According to Chainanalysis, $2 billion was stolen through 13 cross-chain bridge hacks between January and August. These attacks account for 69% of cryptocurrency thefts in 2022, says Chainanalysis. Elliptic, another cryptocurrency analyst firm, noted in its quarterly hack report released this week that bridges “tend to accumulate large amounts of assets locked across many blockchains, many of which have no perhaps no advanced security or auditing culture due to their relative obscurity”.
To see in video