What happened just a few hours ago is unprecedented. a group Hacker Almost stole it 6.36 billion dollars From Binance Wallet to Cryptocurrencies. TRM Labs, a laboratory dedicated to intelligence BlockchainCarefully analyzing what happened, ten networks detected transfers from several wallets associated with Binance to addresses controlled by attackers. Blockchain.
This phenomenon is surprising for several reasons. The most obvious is the value of stolen cryptocurrencies. And it is possible that in the next few hours the figure I mentioned in the previous paragraph will increase. Moreover, it is shocking that someone managed to steal billions of dollars from one of the most sophisticated cryptocurrency platforms on the planet. And, to make matters worse, almost all the money came out in about 20 minutes.
This incident didn’t just affect Bitcoin; Also Ethereum, Tron, Solana and XRP ledger among other cryptos. And, according to TRM Labs, it’s perpetrated by TraderTraitor, a group Hacker From North Korea. It seems that we have completely immersed ourselves in the plot of A ThrillerBut not all of this is very real. And it is possible because of intelligence. In fact, attackers don’t need to break the cryptography that protects the wallet. With current technology, it is computationally impossible to break these algorithms by brute force. What they did is even more disturbing.
The real hero of the biggest heist in history is a laptop
The cryptographic algorithms of Bitcoin, Ethereum and other affected networks were not breached. According to TRM Labs and Elliptic, the most difficult explanation for this event is that Hacker The North Koreans believed responsible for the theft may have compromised Binance’s system that allows transactions to be authorized and signed. This thesis makes sense because the transfers performed by the attackers were valid from a cryptographic point of view, but were not authorized by Binance.
The transfers performed by the attackers were cryptographically valid, but not authorized by Binance
This means that Hacker They did not breach the security of the technology Blockchain; All they did was breach the infrastructure that allowed them to operate. And they attacked to implement it hot wallet From Binance, that is Internet connected wallet which are used to manage operations and manage cryptocurrency withdrawals. What is the difference from them cold wallet The latter keeps their keys disconnected or specially protected.
The investigation is still ongoing, but Binance technicians suspect the theft was possible because the attackers were able to compromise the laptop of an engineer responsible for managing and automating the infrastructure that allows applications and services to run, known as DevOps. It’s just a guess at this point, but it seems the most plausible in this scenario.
It doesn’t mean that Hacker Physically forced to steal the laptop. Binance’s investigation appears to indicate that they were able to access this computer remotely Malware or credential theft. Later they probably use it Binance internal system accesswhich would likely allow them to reach a service container and send unauthorized removal commands.
Additionally, it appears that they used an Ethereum process known as EIP-7702 to get one of Binance’s wallets to delegate its behavior to a smart contract controlled by the attackers. There are still many loose threads, so we won’t know the details of what happened until Binance completes its forensic analysis and all assumptions are supported by hard evidence.
Picture | Tuge Kokaturk
More information TRM Labs | Elliptical
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