The world of cryptocurrencies has become one of the most important for investment and one of the most accessible for people. In this way, users pay dollars for a series of assets in the form of cryptocurrencies, which have high volatility. However, this October 30, they woke up to one of the worst pieces of news in their history.
The largest theft of financial assets in the history of cryptocurrencies has taken place with the hack of Binance, one of the most important platforms for managing this type of investment. The news broke when an employee saw the security of his laptop compromised, leading to the theft of around 6.3 billion dollars in cryptocurrencies.
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The positive note is that the company has managed to freeze almost half of that amount, around 3 billion dollars.
This is how Binance explained it in a statement: “Unauthorized withdrawal transactions”
“Binance’s initial investigation suggests that the security incident may involve a compromised laptop belonging to a DevOps engineer, which allowed an attacker to gain access to a service container and carry out unauthorized withdrawal transactions. We have found no evidence of any leakage of private wallet keys,” the organization warns, while also promising to explain the causes in a report once the issue has been fixed.
Additionally, the company has assured that all of its customers’ wallets are safe: “Binance will cover all losses from the SAFU fund and the company’s funds. Users’ funds are safe. We will also publish an updated Proof of Reserves once the remediation is complete”.
It should be noted that the company has temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals while security checks are being completed, as well as involving law enforcement and intelligence partners to “track and recover the funds.”
