Binance hit by $6.3 billion hack, largest crypto theft on record
Binance suffered a cyberattack on October 29 that drained roughly $6.36 billion across ten blockchains, according to blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs, which said most funds moved within about 20 minutes. The exchange suspended withdrawals, later saying it had frozen about $3 billion of the stolen assets with partners' help and would cover all customer losses, with withdrawals expected to resume within a day or two. Binance initially blamed a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop but has since said investigators found additional breach points, calling it a complex attack.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
TRM Labs and Elliptic both attribute the attack with high confidence to TraderTraitor, a North Korean hacking unit, which Elliptic says rehearsed the operation and used Tornado Cash to fund wallets beforehand, suggesting a sophisticated, state-linked operation rather than an opportunistic breach. At more than four times the size of February's $1.5 billion Bybit hack, the incident could renew scrutiny of exchange security practices and the role of privileged employee access in enabling large-scale theft. Binance's pledge to cover losses may limit immediate customer fallout, but the admission of multiple breach points raises questions about how thoroughly the exchange understands its own exposure.
- Roughly $6.36 billion was stolen from Binance on October 29, the largest crypto heist ever recorded.
- Binance has frozen about $3 billion of the stolen funds and pledged to cover remaining customer losses.
- Blockchain analysts TRM Labs and Elliptic both link the attack to North Korea's TraderTraitor hacking group.
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Published there as: “Binance loses $6.3 billion in largest crypto heist ever”
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