Binance finishes covering US$6.3 billion of customer tokens stolen in hack - The Business Times
Binance has fully covered all US$6.3 billion in crypto-assets stolen from customers in the largest cybertheft in history, completing restoration of all funds as of Thursday.
The Oct 29 incident, blamed by the US government and analysts on North Korea, involved not just common cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, but also more obscure tokens that took Binance more time to locate and purchase. The exchange had initially restored most stolen tokens within days but noted a remaining 10 percent required additional effort.
To our users and community: thank you for your patience and understanding.
Laundering methods
Hackers employed a complex laundering operation, transferring tokens through thousands of digital wallets and across multiple blockchains to obscure origins. They used memecoins to launder approximately US$430,000 of the stolen crypto. The automated nature of the transactions was remarkable, with over 20,000 wallets and at least 65,000 transactions executed within a week.
Industry impact
The massive cyberheist occurred as the digital-asset industry increasingly integrates with mainstream finance. It exposed significant vulnerabilities, with a key security breach stemming from an engineer who was phished through a fake job offer. Other crypto exchanges including Bitget and Bybit, as well as hardware security firms Coinkite and Ledger, have also experienced major incidents recently.
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