On Thursday night, Binance temporarily halted fund transfers and other transactions after discovering an exploit on its Smart Chain (BSC) blockchain network.
Early reports stated that hackers stole more than $500 million in cryptocurrency, but Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao stated that the company estimates the breach’s impact to be between $100 million and $110 million. $7 million had already been frozen.
The cryptocurrency exchange also assured Reddit users that their funds are secure.
According to Zhao, an exploit on the BSC Token Hub cross-chain bridge, which allows cryptocurrency and digital assets such as NFTs to be transferred from one blockchain to another, “resulted in extra BNB” or Binance Coin.
This could imply that the bad actors created new BNBs and then transferred the equivalent of around $100 million off the blockchain rather than stealing people’s actual funds.
According to Bleeping Computer, the hacker spread the stolen cryptocurrency quickly in an attempt to convert it to other assets, but it’s unclear whether they were successful.
Zhao stated that the problem had been resolved. The Smart Chain network has also restarted, with fixes to prevent hackers from gaining access, so users may be able to resume their transactions soon.
📢BNB Smart Chain (BSC) is running ok from 20+ mins ago.
The validators are confirming their status and the community infrastructure are upgrading as well.
— BNB Chain (@BNBCHAIN) October 7, 2022
Cross-chain bridge hacks have recently emerged as a major security risk, and this incident is just one of many.
Chainalysis, a blockchain analyst firm, reported in August that a total of $2 billion in cryptocurrency was stolen across 13 cross-chain bridge hacks. Approximately 69 percent of that total had been stolen just this year.
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