Binance resumes withdrawals after hacker attack steals $6.3 billion

London | Financial Times Binance began releasing withdrawals to customers this Sunday (1st), as it gradually resumed services after an attack that resulted in the record theft of US$6.3 billion (R$34.2 billion) in cryptocurrencies.

The world's largest cryptocurrency broker suffered the attack on Thursday night (29) and suspended withdrawals while it worked to patch its platform and investigate how hackers had broken into its systems.

The company stated this Sunday that it began to resume withdrawals in stages, after the robbery, attributed to a group linked to North Korea.

Initially, Binance allowed the withdrawal of assets such as ether, USDT and USDC held on the Ethereum blockchain, in addition to some cryptocurrencies stored on the BNB Smart Chain network.

According to the company, the gradual resumption was planned so that "each network and asset combination can be reestablished carefully, after stability and security checks are completed." Priority was set based on user demand in the previous week.

Binance stated that customers could experience "temporary delays or longer processing times due to traffic volume."

The company said it will reimburse customers whose assets were stolen in the attack. It has already gathered resources equivalent to 95% of the stolen value, coming from its own income and an emergency fund. The company works to buy tokens corresponding to the remaining 5% on the market, which, according to it, have "less liquidity" and are easier to obtain on a large scale.

The FBI attributed the record robbery on Saturday (31) to the TraderTraitor group, formed by hackers linked to North Korea. The agency said it expects the funds to be converted and "laundered further."

Groups linked to North Korea have become responsible for a significant portion of cryptocurrency thefts in recent years. Last year, the FBI also credited TraderTraitor with stealing $1.5 billion from Bybit, another cryptocurrency exchange.

Binance works with law enforcement authorities and blockchain analysis companies to investigate how the attack occurred. The company stated that it will release a report with the conclusions.

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The company's initial investigation showed that an engineer's notebook had been compromised. Later, however, Binance reported having discovered other “invasion points”.

The scale and speed of the theft surprised the cryptocurrency sector. Richard Teng, co-CEO of Binance, stated after the attack that the company was rebuilding and retesting its entire infrastructure, as well as carrying out a full security review.

"Resuming withdrawals is an important milestone, but our work continues. We will continue to strengthen our protections and complete the recovery process," said Binance.