Binance Affiliated Blockchain Loses USD 100 Million In Cryptohack

by Arthur · October 9, 2022

BNB Chain, a Binance-affiliated crypto exchange, recently fell victim to a massive hack. In total, the company has reportedly lost a whopping $100 million (~RM463.75 million) in Binance coins.

According to Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, the hackers started the theft when the hackers discovered an exploit on the cross-chain bridge in the BSC Token Hub, which is used for transactions between the BNB Beacon Chain and its self-titled Smart Chain. Soon after the hack, Binance took to Twitter to announce the breach and even confirmed via Reddit that the actual amount stolen ranged between US$100 million and US$110 million (~RM510 million). Binance says it should be able to cover any funds that were stolen by the hackers.

.@BNBchain is currently under maintenance.

We will temporarily suspend all deposits and withdrawals via the BNB chain until further updates.

We apologize for the inconvenience this causes. Thank you for your patience!

— Binance (@binance) 6 October 2022

It hasn’t been a good year for cryptocurrency exchanges, and Binance is just the latest exchange to be hit by threat actors. Back in February, hackers launched an attack on cryptocurrency portal Wormhole, making off with roughly $300 million (~RM1.39 billion) in wETH, a one-to-one exchangeable token with Ethereum. The hackers are said to have done so by also exploiting a loophole in the exchange’s embossing and packaging process.

In August this year, hackers already targeted another crypto exchange, Nomad, which breached its cyber security measures and got away with USD 200 million (~RM927 million), or about 10262 Bitcoins in today’s value. Ironically, the attack happened after the company actually overpromised and dug up a sense of overconfidence to its customers, so…there’s that.

An exploit on a cross-chain bridge, the BSC Token Hub, resulted in extra BNB. We have asked all validators to temporarily suspend BSC. The issue is contained now. Your money is safe. We apologize for the inconvenience and will provide further updates accordingly.

— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) 6 October 2022

Back in Malaysia, Binance itself was accused of operating its business illegally by the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) and to that end they had no choice but to remove their services from the Malaysian market.

To get back to the point, BNB Chain said at the time of writing that the platform will be halted for the time being, while it undergoes some maintenance.

(Source: UToday, Reddit, Twitter [1] [2]