Binance Hacking 2019: Crypto Exchange Hacked Again, Thieves Took $45 Million; Company to Shoulder Damages

Binance has once again been hacked, this time the thieves bagging a whopping 7,000 Bitcoin or $45 million. Following the incident, the company wasn’t shy to talk about the matter and provided insight on what really happened in this blog posting.

“The hackers used a variety of techniques, including phishing, viruses and other attacks. We are still concluding all possible methods used. There may also be additional affected accounts that have not been identified yet,” said Binance CEO Zhao Changpeng.

The CEO also revealed that despite the amount taken, it only affected two percent of its hot wallet – a cryptocurrency storage connected to the web. As such, Binance will shoulder all of the financial damages, and its customers will not be incurring any losses.

While this may be good news for some, others are worried about the security breach and the increasing incidents of hacking in recent years. This Binance incident marks one of the biggest heists in the cryptocurrency market.

2014 saw hackers taking down Mt. Gox where they pilfered $460 million out of the Bitcoin exchange resulting in the company’s collapse. In 2016, Bitfinex suffered a similar attack where the thieves took $72 million worth of BTC. And just last year, hackers aimed their expertise at Coincheck where they stole $500 million worth of cryptocurrencies. Binance also took a hit in 2018, although it wasn’t as damaging as this recent one since the thieves only took 96 Bitcoins at the time.

It was also this incident that made Binance create its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU). If not for this security protocol, the hackers could’ve taken so much more. But as mentioned earlier, only two percent of its Bitcoin holdings were taken, a loss that the company can potentially earn back in merely 47 days, News BTC reported.

As for the overall market, it appears that the attack didn’t impact Bitcoin as its value is still climbing as of this writing, trading hands at $6,650. Unfortunately for Binance users, they won’t be able to conduct transactions for a week as deposits and withdrawals have been suspended amidst the company’s investigation.