Crypto platform Binance confirms ‘complex’ US$6.3 billion hack

The Interview , a film that mocked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by daily trading volumes, said investigations had "uncovered additional points of breach", contrary to initial findings that suggested the hack involved a single compromised laptop. "This was a complex attack, and we are doing all we can in coordination with law enforcement to resolve it," Binance wrote on X. The company confirmed on its X account for Latin America that "the total estimated impact is around US$6. 3 billion," four times the amount taken in the Bybit hack, the biggest cyberattack of its kind until now. Binance warned the figure "may continue to increase as our teams work closely with law enforcement, issuers, blockchain intelligence firms and industry partners to trace and freeze additional assets". It said around US$3 billion in affected assets had been frozen.

Customers’ account balances have not been touched, but they cannot move funds off the platform while withdrawals remain suspended. Binance initially suspended all deposits and withdrawals but later said deposits were unaffected. At about 0900 GMT Friday, it said it was on track to resume withdrawals in 45 hours. The company had said on X that initial investigation suggested the hack involved a compromised laptop belonging to a "DevOps engineer", allowing the unauthorized party to execute unauthorized withdrawal transactions. "We have found no evidence of any private key leaks from wallets," it said, promising to share a detailed technical analysis once investigations were complete. The unauthorised withdrawals drained Binance's hot wallets — the online wallets the exchange uses to process customer transfers — across several blockchains, according to CoinDesk. Binance earlier posted a…