Binance : a hacker managed to steal 2 million BNB tokens

The crypto exchange platform Binance is shutting down its BSC blockchain following a hack. The attack targeted a bridge between two blockchains. Binance has thus paused its Binance Smart Chain blockchain.

Binance, your funds are safe

According to the statements of the Binance team, the vulnerability affected the Token-Hub interchain bridge. This bridge allows the interconnection between the distributed networks BNB Beacon Chain (BEP2) and BNB Chain (BEP20 or BSC) both belonging to the platform. At the time of writing, investigations are ongoing.

Indeed, this Friday around 1am, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said that a flaw had been exploited on the BSC Token Hub inter-channel bridge.

However, although the hacker transferred some of the stolen cryptocurrencies, 80% of the funds (~$430 million) remained on the NBB Chain, so the majority of the funds were frozen following the blockchain shutdown. The network was updated with additional code to prevent the hacker from being able to transfer their funds.

We have asked all validators to temporarily suspend the BSC. The problem is now contained. Your funds are safe,” CZ tweeted.

According to the cryptocurrency exchange giant, between $100 million and $110 million in Binance Coin (BNB) has been stolen. It is learned that $7 million has already been frozen.

This morning, the BNB Chain Twitter account reported that BSC validators were coordinating to restart BNB Smart Chain by 8:00 a.m. EST.

Since the hack was announced, the crypto exchange’s native token has lost about 4% of its value to $283.

The exploit appears to be similar to the hack suffered by the Harmony blockchain Horizon cross-chain bridge earlier this year. The amount of funds stolen could have been much larger without Binance’s intervention and BSC’s shutdown.