Binance blockchain hacked, the hackers stole around $500USD Million worth of BNB tokens.
According to Binance, hackers were able to move BNB tokens off the Binance network chain by using a cross-chain bridge linking to the BNB Chain.
According to the blog post, hackers withdrew approximately $570 million worth of BNB tokens from BNB Chain on Friday.
The company previously estimated that the total amount withdrawn would be in the range of $100 million to $110 million.
After hackers stole around $570 million worth of Binance’s BNB token, the cryptocurrency exchange temporarily suspended its blockchain network.
An attack on Binance’s BNB Chain cross-chain bridge was reported late Thursday, allowing hackers to transfer the BNB tokens off the network. A cross-chain bridge allows tokens to be transferred between blockchains.
The Binance team developers is cyber investigating the security breach while the company pauses the creation of new blocks on BSC, suspending all transaction processing while a team of developers investigates the security issue.
The trading volume of Binance makes it the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.
“An exploit on a cross-chain bridge, BSC Token Hub, resulted in extra BNB. We have asked all validators to temporarily suspend BSC,” Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s CEO, said in a tweet Thursday evening.
“The issue is contained now. Your funds are safe. We apologize for the inconvenience and will provide further updates accordingly.”
Since then, BNB Chain has resumed operations.
According to a blog post published by Binance’s BNB Chain on Friday, hackers have stolen a total of two million BNB tokens – approximately $570 million at current prices – from the network.
According to crypto security firm Immunefi, the hack was caused by a bug in the bridge’s smart contract. This bug allowed hackers to forge transactions and transfer money to their crypto wallets. A smart contract is a piece of code on a blockchain that allows agreements to be executed automatically without any human intervention.
“As with many bridge designs, there is one central point that holds most of the funds that are moving through the bridge,” Adrian Hetman, tech lead of the triaging team at Immunefi, told CNBC.
“Ultimately, the Bridge was tricked into giving funds from that contract.”
The company estimated the amount withdrawn to be between $100 million and $110 million. Additionally, the company stated that its security partners assisted the company in freezing $7 million in funds.
According to a Binance spokesperson, the company has coordinated with BNB Chain validators so that the upgrade may be implemented. Therefore, most funds were left in the exploiter’s crypto wallet, while approximately $100 million did not recover.
Currently, BNB Chain has 26 active validators and 44 total validators in different time zones.
In 2019, Binance launched the BNB Chain, formerly known as Binance Chain. The blockchain features a native token, BNB, available for trading and use in games and other applications.
Cybercriminals have recently targeted cross-chain bridges in a series of significant hacks based on sloppy engineering.
Based on data from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, breaches have resulted in approximately $1.4 billion in losses since the beginning of 2022.
Since the peak of a blistering rally from 2020 to 2021, approximately $2 trillion in value has been lost in the crypto industry.
There was an exploit affecting the native cross-chain bridge between BNB Beacon Chain (BEP2) and BNB Smart Chain (BEP20 or BSC), known as “BSC Token Hub.” A total of 2 million BNB was withdrawn. According to the BNB chain team, the exploit was through a sophisticated forging of the low-level proof into one common library.
An exploit on a cross-chain bridge, BSC Token Hub, resulted in extra BNB. We have asked all validators to temporarily suspend BSC. The issue is contained now. Your funds are safe. We apologize for the inconvenience and will provide further updates accordingly.
— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) October 6, 2022
