Grand Theft Crypto: Hackers steal the equivalent of over US$40 million from Binance

Although holding cryptocurrency is supposed to be safe, sometimes large-scale thefts take place and the end users can only hope that the big entities in charge can cover their losses. The latest incident that affected Binance involves — as discovered by now, but the full security review will take one week and the amount might increase — over US$40 million worth of cryptocurrency.

According to Binance, "Hackers were able to obtain a large number of user API keys, 2FA codes, and potentially other info. The hackers used a variety of techniques, including phishing, viruses and other attacks." For now, there is a single transaction connected to the attack, but it involves no less than 7,000 BTC. This transaction targeted the BTC hot wallet only. This wallet contained about 2 percent of the total BTC holdings Binance had at the time of the attack and no other wallets have been affected.

Once the aforementioned transaction has been executed, various alarms were triggered and Binance stopped all withdrawals immediately. Binance will use the SAFU fund to cover the incident, so no users funds will be affected. However, deposits and withdrawals will remain suspended during the thorough security review that is currently being conducted and is expected to last one week.