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Binance to cover losses from $6.3 billion security incident
Binance says it will cover losses from a security incident that publishers estimate at $6.3 billion, while reports differ on frozen funds and the attacker.
What happened
Binance says it will cover losses from a security incident that publishers estimate at $6.3 billion, while reports differ on frozen funds and the attacker.
Why it matters
The incident, described by one publisher as among the largest of its kind, raises questions about how exchanges secure customer assets and manage custody.
CryptoPotato reported that Binance is dealing with a security incident estimated to have affected $6.3 billion. Co-CEO Richard Teng told customers in a post on X that the exchange will cover all losses. Bitcoin Magazine described the event as the largest hack of its kind measured by dollar value, noting that more than $6.3 billion in assets had moved on-chain. Decrypt put the amount drained at roughly $6.4 billion.
According to CryptoPotato's account of Teng's post, early investigations suggested an attacker reached a service container through a compromised laptop used by a DevOps engineer, then submitted unauthorized withdrawals. Teng pushed back on the idea that one employee's access or a single action explained the breach, describing a more intricate sequence and saying no individual had been held responsible. Binance later stated that further work uncovered additional breach points, without identifying them, and Teng said no sign of a private key leak had been found.
The publishers' figures diverge on recovered funds. CryptoPotato reported that about $3 billion had been frozen on-chain with help from blockchain partners. Bitcoin Magazine said roughly $3 billion was frozen through stablecoin operators and that $3.3 billion remained unrecovered. Bitcoin Magazine also reported that TRM Labs linked the attack to North Korea's TraderTraitor group, while Decrypt attributed the attackers to North Korea directly. The reports do not reconcile these accounts.
Binance said it had halted withdrawals for a period, rebuilt the withdrawal service and connected addresses, revoked permissions for affected addresses, and asked law enforcement and blockchain analytics firms to help trace the money. Teng said customer funds are safe and that losses will be met from the SAFU fund plus extra company money. CryptoPotato also described some X users criticizing the response, but that part of its report was cut off, so the reports do not detail the criticism.
Decrypt's piece was a short preview, so it offered little on next steps. The reports do not describe further measures beyond those already listed.
Sources
Mentioned in this story
CoinGecko last prints. Not a Dextape quote.
