The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, has been hit by a cyberattack involving an estimated $6.3 billion in digital assets, the company said.
Deposits and withdrawals have been temporarily suspended following what is believed to be the largest theft from a cryptocurrency exchange to date.
Binance said on X late Thursday that users’ funds remained “safe” and that it would cover all losses from the “security incident.”
Working with blockchain partners, the exchange had so far frozen affected cryptocurrency assets worth around $3 billion, it added.
The stolen assets include Bitcoin, Ethereum and stablecoins such as Tether and USD Coin, whose values are pegged to traditional currencies.
Blockchain analysis firm TRM Labs attributed the attack to North Korean hackers belonging to the TraderTraitor group. According to TRM, the attackers moved most of the $6.3 billion within 20 minutes, apparently in an attempt to prevent the assets from being frozen.
TRM said the attackers had attempted to move the stolen assets through a series of transactions to evade restrictions. They still controlled cryptocurrencies worth around $2.4 billion that could not be frozen by their issuers, the firm added.
Investigation focuses on compromised laptop
According to Binance chief executive Richard Teng, the attackers used a self-destruct mechanism that “destroyed tooling and traces as they went,” making the investigation harder.
Binance is working with law enforcement, blockchain intelligence firms, token issuers and other exchanges to trace and recover the stolen funds, he said.
Preliminary internal investigations by Binance suggest the attack may have originated from a “compromised laptop” belonging to one of the company’s software engineers. The attackers may have used the device to gain access to a service computer and initiate unauthorized withdrawals.
Binance said there was currently no evidence that private wallet keys had been compromised. Investigators were instead examining whether the infrastructure used to authorize transactions had been manipulated.
“Our teams are working around the clock to resolve this issue safely and thoroughly,” Binance said.
“We will do everything within our power to ensure that these bad actors will be held accountable,” said Teng.
At the same time, Binance is running a full security review across the company, covering “endpoints, cloud, key management, signing. Everything,” he said.
Bitcoin falls following attack
The news also rattled cryptocurrency markets, with Bitcoin falling below $77,000 to its lowest level in around six weeks.
Read More: $6bn hack by ‘bad actors’ hits crypto exchange Binance
