The criminal exploited a flaw in the gateway connecting the two blockchains. Binance had to halt trading for a few hours.
Binance’s first tweet alerted users at 12:21 a.m. on October 7. ” Due to irregular operation, we are suspending PSC temporarily. We apologize for the inconvenience and will provide further updates here. Thank you for your patience and understanding. “.
The exchange, which claims 120 million users worldwide, suffered theft worth between $100 million and $110 million, although it will certainly take some time for Binance to accurately estimate the total amount.
This is again a vulnerability in a bridge, created to allow the circulation of assets between two blockchains, which has been exploited by an attacker(s). In this particular case, they used a bridge between BNB Smart Chain and BNB Beacon Chain (formerly Binance Chain) to mine Binance’s tokens, BNB tokens. According to a spokesperson, Binance was able to freeze $7 million in funds with the help of its security partners.
On Friday morning, crypto deposit and withdrawal operations resumed as usual. The BNB token fell more than 3% to $285.36 on Friday morning, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
Year-to-date, roughly $1.4 billion has been lost through exploiting breaches in “bridges,” according to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.
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