Binance hit by alleged $6.3 billion security breach; freezes $3 billion in assets
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Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is investigating a major security breach that it estimates has affected around $6.3 billion worth of crypto assets, potentially making it the largest crypto heist on record.
The exchange said nearly $3 billion of the affected assets had been frozen on-chain, while stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle have also frozen assets linked to the incident.
In a statement, Binance said its initial investigation suggested that the incident may have originated from a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop.
“Initial investigation suggests that the security incident may involve a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop, which allowed an attacker to gain access to a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions,” the exchange said.
Binance added that it had found “no evidence of any wallet private key leak” and said it would release a detailed technical post-mortem once the investigation was complete and the facts had been verified.
Binance to cover losses
The exchange said it would cover the losses arising from the incident through its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) and company funds.
“Binance will cover all losses from the SAFU fund and the company’s funds. User funds are safe,” the exchange said.
The assurance comes as the crypto industry assesses the scale of the breach. Reuters reported that blockchain intelligence firms TRM Labs and Chainalysis attributed the attack to North Korean hackers, while TRM said several characteristics of the attack were consistent with earlier incidents linked to North Korea.
The reported $6.3 billion impact would dwarf the $1.5 billion Bybit hack in 2025, which was attributed by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation to North Korea.
Deposits and withdrawals suspended
As an immediate precaution, Binance said it had temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals while security checks were under way.
The exchange also said it had revoked the affected address authorisation and engaged law-enforcement agencies and blockchain intelligence partners to trace and recover the funds.
“Our teams are working around the clock to resolve this issue safely and thoroughly,” Binance said.
“We are working closely with our law enforcement partners to confirm the identity of these criminals and bring them to justice.”
Binance also said it would publish an updated Proof of Reserves once the remediation process was complete.