"Binance" resumes withdrawals after billion-dollar hack
Binance cryptocurrency exchange announced the gradual resumption of withdrawals after a security breach on October 29 that affected assets worth $6.34 billion, and reconstituted 98% of the affected assets using its own resources.
Binance cryptocurrency exchange announced on Thursday the gradual resumption of withdrawals for an additional set of digital assets, in its latest step to restore services after a security breach on October 29 that affected assets worth $6.34 billion. In its eighth update on the incident, the exchange said that the resumption of withdrawals began at 4:00 AM UTC, with assets to be made available gradually after completing security checks and ensuring system readiness, warning of possible temporary delays due to high transaction volume. This step follows Binance's announcement on Wednesday that it had reconstituted about 98% of the assets affected by the breach, confirming that it allocated funds from its own resources to cover losses in full, and continues to purchase the remaining coins from markets and through direct deals. The company explained that completing the compensation for the remaining 2% requires additional time due to low liquidity of some cryptocurrencies. This percentage does not mean recovering the stolen funds from the attackers, but rather re-providing the equivalent of the affected assets using the exchange's own resources, as announced by the company. According to preliminary investigation results published by Binance and covered by the Washington Post, the breach resulted from a multi-stage cyber operation that spanned several months, during which job interviews, social engineering, and malicious software were used to access devices of employees within the company.