- The Binance Chain fell victim to a $580 million exploit.
- First signs of the hack were posted on Twitter by PeckShield Inc.
- Binance CEO asked the crypto community not to rush devs as they come up with a patch for the bug.
The Binance Chain (BNB) was hacked over the last 24 hours as a cybercriminal was able to exploit the chain for over $580 million.
First signs of a potential hack appeared on Twitter when several accounts, including the likes of @peckshield, a blockchain security firm, highlighted the retrieval of $2 million worth of Binance Coin (BNB) from the network’s cross-chain bridge.
Stolen BNB was deposited by the hacker as collateral on the BNB-based lending platform, Venus, to borrow stablecoins including Binance USD (BUSD), Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC).
Thereafter, the hacker sent some of the borrowed funds to 6 other blockchain networks using @StargateFinance and @MultichainOrg. These blockchain networks include Fantom (FTM), Polygon (MATIC) and Avalanche (AVAX).
The hacker then used the stablecoins to swap for ether (ETH) through each network, which was then bridged back to the ETH mainnet.
On the surface the entire process seemed to be an on-chain leveraged bet that used BNB as collateral to borrow stablecoins, which were then used to swap for ETH on other networks. However, the source of the collateral would be the problem.
Just an hour after the exploit was noticed, Binance announced that the network will be paused. In addition, $7 million of the stolen funds had been successfully frozen. Furthermore, in an attempt to prevent the hacker from making more transfers, @Tether_to has blacklisted the hacker’s account. So, they are unable to transfer the remaining USDT from their wallet.
The CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, posted on Twitter in the early hours of this morning that “No ETA yet. Let’s give the devs time to fully understand the root cause, implement the fixes, test them thoroughly, and then resume. Let’s not rush it now. Thank you for your understanding, patience, and support.”
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