The real lesson from the Binance heist goes beyond crypto
The National · Nick March ·
It has exposed the bigger threat to us all, which is cyber insecurity
It is only a few days since what was initially termed a security incident at Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, resulted in deposits and withdrawals being frozen. Only hours later the attack was labelled as a $6.3 billion crypto heist. By dollar value, it was reckoned to be the biggest theft in history.
The robbery was perpetrated after an exchange engineer’s laptop was compromised and hackers submitted a series of “unauthorised withdrawal transactions”, according to Binance. The funds were said to have been siphoned from the platform by a shadowy North Korean hacking group, although that claim has been denied by state officials.
In its speed, stealth and sheer size, the robbery had the hallmarks of a generational crisis for the crypto industry, particularly as some coverage of the event oscillated between barely hidden schadenfreude aimed at the exchange and some kind of strangely expressed pride in the apparently audacious nature of the crime.
Read the full story at The National · All coverage of this story