The world鈥檚 largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance has been hit with the biggest ever cryptocurrency heist, in which billions of dollars of reserves were drained in just 20 minutes.
From 8:05pm on 29 October, $6.36 billion in cryptocurrencies were shifted from wallets in a coordinated attack from a North Korean-linked hacking unit called TraderTraitor. This group was of the Bybit crypto exchange in February 2025.
The US Treasury has that such stolen funds are used to finance North Korea鈥檚 nuclear missile programme.
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Despite cryptocurrency鈥檚 founding idea of decentralisation, meaning no one has singular control over the money flowing through the network, there are some large single points of failure. It is thought one of these was the cause of the Binance hack, which gave access to a system the exchange uses to authorise transfers out of customers鈥� accounts.
In , Binance said its early investigations indicate the security incident may stem from a compromised laptop belonging to an engineer. TRM Labs, a cybersecurity firm, suggests that preparations for the attack may have begun several days ago.
The company claims it has found no evidence that the private cryptographic keys used to authorise transactions were stolen. Instead, the attackers appear to have gained access to the software that requests withdrawals, potentially allowing them to instruct Binance鈥檚 own systems to approve the transfers. However, the investigation is continuing and the firm has said in there may have been 鈥渁dditional points of breach鈥�.
鈥淚t shouldn鈥檛 be possible for a single [developer] PC to be compromised and somehow for that to allow the entire exchange to be compromised,鈥� says at the University of Surrey, UK. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 understand how that can happen unless they鈥檝e got the most ridiculous operational security.鈥�
If that is the case, it highlights how precarious major financial hubs in the crypto world can be to single points of failure.
鈥淵ou can build a vault with mathematical firewalls, but if the individual holding the keys can be duped, the vault is opened,鈥� says at FARx, a cybersecurity company. 鈥淢ost crypto platforms are as centralised as any bank, with a small number of privileged individuals controlling billions. The difference is that once crypto is transferred, it鈥檚 gone.鈥�
That centralisation can be a blessing as well as a curse, though: cryptocurrencies Tether and Circle have been able to freeze billions of dollars of stolen coins, stymying the hackers in attempts to transfer about half the stolen funds any further.
Woodward says the Binance incident potentially strikes a distinction between crypto security and more traditional finance. 鈥淵ou would hope there鈥檇 be things like two-man rules [where two separate people have to approve a change] or things that banks have for changing critical systems, but it doesn鈥檛 look like those were in place.鈥�
