Binance Hack

The blockchain ecosystem witnessed a Binance hack this morning, 7th October 2022. The world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange witnessed a hack of $570 million.

However, the hack was on a blockchain connected to Binance. One of the spokespersons on Binance mentioned on Friday that the hack is the latest in the list of hacks that the cryptocurrency ecosystem has witnessed this year.

The CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, mentioned in a tweet that the hackers stole the tokens through a blockchain “bridge” that the BNB Chain uses.

It was formerly known as BSC (Binance Smart Chain) until February 2022. Blockchain bridges are transfer tools used for transferring cryptocurrencies between various applications.

 

 

Changpeng initially stated that the crypto hackers stole cryptocurrencies worth $100 million. Later, the BNB Chain mentioned in a blog that the hackers withdrew over 2 million BNB crypto (valued at around $570 million).

The spokesperson from Binance, in an email comment, said that a large number of the BNB is in the digital wallet address of the hacker, while around $100 million worth of the BNB is still unrecovered.

Recently, blockchain bridges have become significant targets for cryptocurrency thieves. Moreover, it is becoming a plague in the cryptocurrency industry.

The BNB cryptocurrency runs on the BNB Chain, previously known as Binance Coin. Binance Coin is currently the fifth-largest cryptocurrency token in the world. The token’s market capitalization is around $46 billion, according to data from CoinGecko.

Other Hacks Apart from Binance Hack

Hackers have stolen over $2 billion worth of crypto from over 13 crypto bridges this year. This date was from an analysis that Chainlink made in August 2022.

Hackers stole more than $600 million from Ronin Bridge in March. The Ronin Bridge is the tool that makes a crypto transfer in and out of the Axie Infinity game. The heist is one of the largest crypto heists in the history of cryptocurrency hacks. According to the United States, the hackers are from North Korea.

For some hours this morning, BNB Chain paused its blockchain. However, they resumed activities at around 0630 GMT. According to a blog post by BNB Chain, they prevented the hack from spreading.

They controlled it by reaching out to the validators of the blockchain. According to BNB Chain, the blockchain has 44 validators in different parts of the world.

In responding to stopping such occurrences in the future, BNB Chain said it will bring in a new “mechanism of governance.” The mechanism will counter such hacks in the future and increase the number of validators on the blockchain.

In summary, we do not think there is a need to panic. Everything is still working fine up till now on the BNB Chain.

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