Hackers have reportedly stolen 2 million Binance Coins (BNB), worth $566 million, from the Binance Bridge. Details are scant at the moment, but the attack appears to have started at 2:30 PM EST today, with the attacker’s wallet receiving two transactions, each consisting of 1,000,000 BNB. Soon after the hacker began spreading some of the funds across a variety of liquidity pools, attempting to transfer the BNB into other assets. Binance acknowledged the security incident at 6:19 PM EST and paused the BNB Smart Chain while they investigated the incident. More information: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hacker-steals-566-million-worth-of-crypto-from-binance-bridge/
The crypto industry is being targeted by cyber criminals because as infamous bank robber Willie Sutton said “That’s where the money is.” And with crypto, the money is in a digital medium, that can be quickly transferred and laundered with a low likelihood the cryptocurrency will be recovered. Targeting the crypto industry is relatively low risk, as the transfer of crypto currencies can be done pseudo-anonymously. We will see these attacks increase as they are profitable, low risk and more tools and techniques are being developed to target the industry.