A blockchain linked to Binance, the biggest crypto exchange in the world, was hit by a $570 million crypto hack, as stated by a Binance spokesperson on October 7. This happened as the latest in a series of hacks that have hit the crypto industry this year.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao confirmed in a tweet that tokens were stolen from a blockchain “bridge” used in the BNB Chain. The platform was known as Binance Smart Chain until February 2022.
Blockchain bridges are tools that are used to transfer cryptos between various applications. In that context, criminals have increasingly targeted these applications, with up to $2 billion stolen in 13 different hacks, mostly in 2022, as highlighted in an August 2022 Chainalysis report.
The hackers stole nearly $100 million worth of crypto, according to Zhao. BNB Chain later published in a blog post that up to 2 million of the BNB crypto – worth about $570 million – was withdrawn by the hacker.
Most of the BNB remained in the hacker’s digital wallet address, while around $100 million worth of coins were ‘unrecovered,’ based on an email by the Binance spokesperson. BNB Chain supports BNB, previously known as Binance Coin, which is the fourth biggest token in the world currently with a market value of more than $45 billion, as seen from CoinGecko data.
Elliptic, a London-based crypto blockchain researcher, told reporters that the hacker had minted 2 million new BNB tokens before transferring most of the stolen funds to other cryptos including USD Coin and Tether.
BNB Chain suspended its blockchain for many hours before it resumed at about 0630 GMT, it said in a tweet.
BNB chain managed to stop the incident from spreading by contacting the blockchain’s “validators.” The validators are entities or people who authenticate blockchain transactions. There are up to 44 validators across many different time zones, according to the report by BNB Chain.
Buy Bitcoin NowNotably, BNB Chain is described by Binance as a “community-driven, open-sourced and decentralized ecosystem.” It insisted that it would introduce a new “governance mechanism” to counter any future hacking attempts, and expand the number of validators.
In March 2022, hackers stole about $615 million from a blockchain bridge known as Ronin Bridge. That was one of the biggest crypto heists in history. In that case, the United States authorities linked to North Korean hackers.
