Binance says hackers got in through more than one door in $6.3B theft

Binance, one of the world's biggest crypto exchanges, says hackers got in through more than one route when they stole about $6.3 billion. It appears to be the largest crypto heist ever. The company first blamed an engineer's laptop. On Friday it said it had "uncovered additional points of breach."

What Binance says

Binance reported the breach on Thursday. It said the problem "may involve a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop." A DevOps engineer helps run a company's software systems. That laptop let the attacker into Binance's systems and "submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions." On Friday the company said the "complex attack" went beyond that. Co-CEO Richard Teng said in a video that the attacker used a "self-destruct mechanism" to hide their tracks, which slowed the investigation.

What happens to customer money

• Binance says user funds are "safe" and that it will cover all losses.
• Payment will come from its Secure Asset Fund for Users and company funds.
• It has reserved over $6.34 billion of its own money for this.
• About $3 billion has been frozen so far with help from partners.
• Deposits work as usual. Withdrawals are expected to resume within 45 hours.

Who is blamed

Binance has not said who is responsible. Two crypto tracing firms point to the same group. TRM said it had "high confidence" that TraderTraitor, a North Korean hacking unit, did it. Chainalysis also named the group. Last year the FBI found the same group behind a $1.5 billion attack on the exchange Bybit.

TRM found that the attacker withdrew most of the money within about 20 minutes. Chainalysis said thousands of transactions in a short period suggest automation was used to hide the trail.

Market reaction and other incidents

Around 8 am ET on Friday, Bitcoin was down about 3.2% and Ethereum about 3.8%. Separately, the prediction platform Polymarket paused trading on Thursday after users reported unauthorized withdrawals. It said trading had resumed by 3 pm ET. There is no evidence the incidents are related.

What is not known yet

Binance has not said what the "additional points of breach" are. It says it will share a detailed technical report once the investigation is complete. For anyone who keeps money on a crypto exchange, the lesson is that even giant platforms can be breached. It is worth checking what protections and backup funds yours has.