Tanya Abrosimova
Independent Analyst
- The worlds largest exchange confirmed the security breach.
- Deposits and withdrawals are suspended.
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, experienced, fell victim to a massive hack attack. Hackers got away with Bitcoins worth of $40.7 million along with user API keys, 2FA codes, and potentially other data, according to the official announcement made by the company.
The large-scale security breach was discovered on May May 7, 2019 at 17:15 UTC. The hackers 7000 BTC in one transaction from Binance’s hot wallet, while other wallets remain unaffected. The company emphasised that the hot wallet contained only 2% of all it BTC holdings.
“The hackers used a variety of techniques, including phishing, viruses and other attacks. We are still concluding all possible methods used. There may also be additional affected accounts that have not been identified yet,” they said in the announcement.
The exchange froze funds withdrawals after the internal security system spotted a suspicious transaction after it was executed. Binance’s CEO Zhao said that the exchange was undertaking unscheduled maintenance before the security breach as officially admitted.
“Have to perform some unscheduled server maintenance that will impact deposits and withdrawals for a couple hours. No need to FUD. Funds are #safu.,” he tweeted
Now the company will undergo an internal investigation to find out the vulnerability. In the meantime, deposits and withdrawals will remain suspended, while trading functionality will be restored soon.
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