Scammers steal $100 million from Binance.
Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, has reported that scammers have successfully stolen cryptocurrency worth one hundred million dollars from the company.
On Twitter, the CEO of the company, Changpeng Zhao, explained that “an exploit” in the system resulted in an increased production of the dedicated currency used by the exchange. He added that “the current effect estimate is over $100 million.”
“The situation is under control at this point. Your money won’t go anywhere. We are sorry for the trouble this has caused, and we will keep you updated as new information becomes available.
Although it is one of the largest robberies in the history of cryptocurrencies, it is still overshadowed by the massive theft of over $500 million from the Axie Infinity blockchain game earlier this year.
Scammers are becoming more sophisticated in their use of vulnerabilities in “cross-chain bridges,” which are the means by which investors shift assets from one blockchain to another.
Bitcoin’s blockchain is the most well-known example of a blockchain, but there are dozens of others just like it. Blockchains are digital ledgers that keep data of transactions.
Changpeng Zhao said in his post that the theft occurred due to “an exploit on a cross-chain bridge, BSC Token Hub,” but he reassured clients that the issue had been resolved.
In a post on Reddit, the exchange stated that the amount of money stolen was between $100 and $110 million, adding that $7 million of it had already been recovered.
Bridges were abused in both the hack on Axie Infinity and the robbery on Nomad, which took place a month ago and involved over $200 million.
In August, a company that specializes in crypto analysis called Chainalysis reported that bridge vulnerabilities were responsible for almost $2 billion worth of thefts so far in 2018.
Another analytical company, Elliptic, stated this week in its crime report that bridges “tend to gather enormous quantities of locked assets on several blockchains, many of which may not have advanced security or auditing cultures due to the relative secrecy of their networks.”
It went on to say that because of this, bridges have historically been a target of interest for cybercriminals.
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