Hackers stole 7,000 bitcoin worth $41 million (£31 million) from the global cryptocurrency exchange Binance.
Binance chief executive Changpeng Zhao said “The hackers used a variety of techniques, including phishing, viruses and other attacks.”
Bitcoin’s price dropped by as much as 4.2 percent in early Asian trading following the news, however some of the losses were recovered. In a Binance security breach update, the company stated:
“It was unfortunate that we were not able to block this withdrawal before it was executed. Once executed, the withdrawal triggered various alarms in our system. We stopped all withdrawals immediately after that.”
Zhao confirmed the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) will ensure no user funds will be affected. A full security review will mean deposits and withdrawals will be suspended for about a week.
In light of the heist, TFT spoke to Julie Plavnik, CBDO, Xena Exchange, who commented:
“The attack on Binance is a yet another case showing how unreliable centralised exchanges are. Obviously, even with the presence of impressive financial resources, enabling the exchange to address the security issue properly, and despite the trust of millions of users around the world (as is well known, Binance is one of the leaders in trading volumes), such exchanges are outdated and are more like a giant game of Russian Roulette than a financial ecosystem that stimulates the favorable development of the crypto market.
The consequence of such events is the slowing down of the development of the crypto financial market, since such attacks increasingly weaken the confidence of participants and delay the entry of institutional entities into the market. Market participants have high expectations related to attacks: namely, that the market will begin to develop strongly and become more orderly and professional. In other words, the institutional entities will lead the market to a higher professional standard.”
