One of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, Binance, has suffered a major security breach yesterday, where hackers got away with around 7,000 BTC. The Binance Bitcoin scam was confirmed via a statement shared with many best cryptocurrency news sites on May 7.
According to Binance, the hackers used a lot of tactics such as phishing and viruses to get away with a lot of 2FA codes and API keys as well as other information. As the exchange stated, there was one affected transaction where hackers managed to steal 7,000 Bitcoins (BTC) worth around $40 million right now. The Binance Bitcoin scam was confirmed in a letter on the official website.
In the letter, the CEO of the exchange Changpeng Zhao (CZ) spoke to the public, stating that the Bitcoin were withdrawn from the hot wallets of the company – containing only 2% of the exchange’s total Bitcoin holdings. As Zhao said, the Binance Bitcoin scam did not affect other wallets.
As the latest cryptocurrency news show, Binance is suspending all of the deposits and withdrawals. In the meantime, the exchange will conduct a security review to investigate the Binance Bitcoin scam completely, review its systems and do all the work needed to prevent such things from happening again in the future. Trading BTC on the exchange will be active and the traders will be able to adjust their positions accordingly.
Zhao has talked about the Binance Bitcoin scam objectively and preventatively, stating:
“Please also understand that the hackers may still control certain user accounts and may use those to influence prices in the meantime. We will monitor the situation closely. But we believe with withdrawals disabled, there isn’t much incentive for hackers to influence markets.”
Right now, Zhao believes that the Bitcoin scam won’t have a big incentive to influence markets. As he added, he is working on conducting a Twitter AMA to field questions from the community.
The Binance Bitcoin scam has triggered the exchange to use a Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) which will help and cover the incident. The altcoin news show that there is no risk for other altcoins to be stolen. As a reminder, Binance created the fund in July 2018 as a type of emergency insurance for cases like these.
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