Billion dollar hacker attack on crypto exchange Binance

Experts speak of the largest attack on a crypto exchange to date: The largest digital currency exchange Binance has become the target of a billion-dollar cyber attack. According to Binance, a total of an estimated $6.3 billion - around 5.6 billion euros - is affected.

As the company announced, all deposits and withdrawals have been temporarily stopped. At the same time, the crypto exchange on the online platform X assured that the users' holdings were "safe". So far, digital currencies worth around three billion dollars have been frozen with partners, it said.

All losses will be compensated - from our own company resources and from a fund. Binance says it operates a security fund for users. This is a reserve held entirely in Bitcoin that is intended to protect users' assets in the event of cyberattacks.

North Korean hackers are said to be behind the attack. This is reported by the analysis company TRM Labs. The attackers then moved most of the stolen cryptocurrencies within just 20 minutes. According to TRM, the attackers attempted to forestall the freezing of stolen digital currency units by transacting with the crypto units.

According to Binance's initial investigations, the security incident could be related to an IT employee's compromised laptop. This may have allowed an attacker to gain access to a so-called service container and trigger unauthorized payout orders.

However, there is so far no evidence that private keys for the crypto wallets have been stolen. As soon as the investigation has been completed and all facts have been verified, Binance wants to publish a detailed technical investigation report.

In addition, the company has called in law enforcement agencies and blockchain analysis firms “to track the flow of funds and recover the assets,” it said. Together with the law enforcement authorities, they want to determine the identity of the perpetrators and bring them to justice.

It was the largest-scale attack on a digital currency exchange, reports TRM Labs. In the most serious attack to date, around $1.5 billion in digital currencies were stolen on the Bybit exchange at the beginning of 2025. This attack was also attributed to the North Korean hacker group.