The world's biggest crypto exchange Binance, was hacked, and around $100 million worth of Binance Coin was stolen.
Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency platform by volume, said on Friday it had been hacked, estimating the scale of the theft at around $100 million.
According to Binance, the hackers managed to withdraw a total of 2 million BNB, the cryptocurrency issued by Binance, or about $580 million at Friday's price. However, they were only able to mine a fraction of that amount, as the majority of the amount was immediately blocked.
The hackers attacked the BSC Token Hub cross-chain bridge. Note: A bridge is a service that allows a user to transfer cryptographic tokens from one blockchain to another.
The Binance Smart Chain (BSC) blockchain to which the hackers' bridge is connected was suspended after the hack and then restored a few hours later. Attacks on cross-chain bridges have increased in recent months.
In August, hackers stole the equivalent of $190 million by exploiting a flaw in the Nomad Bridge. According to Chainanalysis, $2 billion was stolen via 13 cross-chain bridge hacks between January and August. These attacks account for 69% of cryptocurrency theft in 2022, Chainanalysis says.
Elliptic, another cryptocurrency analytics firm, noted in its quarterly hack report published this week that bridges "tend to accumulate large amounts of locked assets across many blockchains, many of which may not have an advanced security or auditing culture due to their relative obscurity."
This makes bridges "an attractive target for cybercriminals", adds Elliptic.
