Binance Smart Chain Halted Over Potential Attack, Nearly $80 Million Stolen

A potential hack in the Binance blockchain was detected today through a spike in irregular activity. The development led to the halting of transactions on the chain. BNB Chain’s initial announcement on its Twitter handle stated that there would be a temporary pause on the chain, but later, the break turned into a halt.

BNB chain second announcement explained that its technical team had now contained its systems and commenced investigating a potential vulnerability. It also asked its community to assist in freezing any transfers.

SlowMist, a blockchain security firm, reports that the attacker could have gotten away with over $560 million in virtual assets, including Polygon, Ethereum, BNB Chain, Fantom, Avalanche, and optimism. According to SlowMist, the attacker spread funds to several networks to launder them.

Blockchain developer Oxfoobar claims this hack could be the first or second attack of all time. Though he says the impact will not be significant considering the mitigation efforts undertaken by the BNB Chain community. The total value of assets stolen remains unclear as it varies based on how to account for the value of frozen versus transferred tokens.

Binance Team Assures Users of Funds Safety

BNB Chain has assured users of the safety of their funds, stating that the BNB tokens stolen were not pre-existing in their wallets but instead created by the hacker. Sam Sun, a researcher at Paradigm, explains the BNB Chain Statement further. He says the hacker convinced the Binance Bridge to send 1 million BNB tokens to their address twice.

BNB Chain Acknowledges Community Efforts in Freezing Transfers

A recent BNB Chain tweet states that over $6 million in digital assets were frozen before the attacker could transfer them. However, it reports that the attacker got away with nearly $80 million from the Binance Smart Chain. BNB chain thanked its community effort and security personnel for their quick response.

Changpeng Zhao, the Binance CEO, explains that an exploit on a cross-chain bridge, BSC Token Hub, resulted in additional BNB. According to Oxfoobar, this hack resembles the Ronin and Harmony Cross-Chain Horizon Bridge exploit, which revealed that broken proof verification allows attackers to forge arbitrary messages.