Hackers Steal Over US$40M from Cryptocurrency Company Binance

Some US$40 million worth of bitcoins were stolen by hackers from one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Binance, the company confirmed Wednesday.

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"The hackers had the patience to wait, and execute well-orchestrated actions through multiple seemingly independent accounts at the most opportune time,” said Binance in an official statement.

The 7,000 bitcoin (US$41,000,000) were withdrawn by hackers using a variety of techniques, “including phishing, viruses and other attacks,” chief executive officer Zhao Changpeng said.

"The transaction is structured in a way that passed our existing security checks," he said. "Once executed, the withdrawal triggered various alarms in our system. We stopped all withdrawals immediately after that."

However, the post said user funds would not be affected because the company would use its secure asset fund for users to cover the loss.

Zhao said on Twitter other crypto exchanges, including Coinbase, had blocked deposits from addresses linked to the hack.

Last year, $950 million of cryptocurrencies was stolen from cryptocurrency exchanges and infrastructure services such as wallets, up nearly 260 percent from the previous year, research from U.S.-based cyber security firm CiptherTrace showed.