Biggest crypto platform confirms $6.3-B hack
Cryptocurrency platform Binance said on Thursday it had fallen victim to a major hack that hit around $6.3 billion in funds, with about half that amount frozen to prevent a massive theft.
The company—the world’s largest crypto exchange by daily trading volumes—posted a series of sometimes contradictory messages on X, insisting that “user funds are completely safe” but also saying it would “cover all losses.”
The company said later on its X account for Latin America that “the total estimated impact is around $6.3 billion.”
That would be four times the amount impacted in what had been the biggest-ever cyberattack of its kind to date: $1.5 billion taken in February 2025 from the Bybit platform.
The Bybit heist was attributed at the time to a group of hackers affiliated with North Korea called TraderTraitor.
Blockchain investigation firm TRM Labs said on Thursday it had “high confidence” that the Binance hack was also orchestrated by TraderTraitor.
Compromised laptop
The company’s statement on X said an initial investigation suggested the hack involved a compromised laptop belonging to a “DevOps engineer,” allowing the unauthorized party to access a “service container” and execute unauthorized withdrawal transactions.
“We have found no evidence of any private key leaks from wallets,” Binance said, promising to share a detailed technical analysis once investigations were complete.
For several hours before Binance confirmed the attack, industry observers said hackers had managed to reach the platform.
The attack on Binance comes as many observers express worries that the ever-expanding capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) models could compromise cryptography and IT security protocols.
