Binance, which is the largest exchange in the world in terms of trading volume recently had its blockchain fall victim to cyber theft.

According to the cybersecurity experts linked with the cryptocurrency industry, it is one of the largest thefts not only in the year 2022 but in the history of cryptocurrencies.

BNB Chain Suffered a $570 Million Hack

The blockchain of Binance is ‘BNB Chain’ and it reportedly suffered a major hack that saw the exchange lose $570 million. This information is confirmed by one of the inside sources at Binance.

It was last Thursday when Binance announced that it had suspended its blockchain temporarily. At that time, BNB Chain officials revealed that they had noticed some irregular activity on their blockchain.

However, the following day, the officials at the BNB Chain revealed that they had fallen victim to a hack. As a result, the hackers were able to steal a large number of cryptocurrency tokens.

It was confirmed by the officials that the hackers were able to get their hands on Binance Coin (BNB). BNB is the native token issued by Binance through the BNB Chain.

The BNB that the hackers were able to steal amounted to $570 million.

Tweet by Binance CEO

Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance kept providing updates to the Binance community through Twitter.

Initially, Zhao revealed that they suffered a theft that saw them lose $100 million. Zhao also assured the users that nothing had been done to their funds and they were fully safe and secure.

On Thursday night, Zhao even apologized to the entire Binance community for suspending the BNB Chain all of a sudden to deal with the situation.

Zhao added that out of the total funds stolen by the hacker, they have frozen most of them but the hacker was able to steal $100 million. The hacker had already moved the $100 million worth of tokens to a different platform or wallet.

How the Hack took Place

The hackers knew exactly what they had to do in order to carry out the hack. They attacked the cross-chain bridge through the BNB Chain. The bridges are used to transfer and exchange funds from one blockchain to another.

As bridges are constantly bombarded with tokens from different chains, they are the favorite target of hackers.

As of August, $1.83 billion worth of cryptocurrencies has been stolen from the cross-chain bridges. The largest hacks that have taken place so far are of Ronin bridge of Axie Infinity, Harmony, and Nomad.

From the three hacks, the hackers were able to steal funds worth $625 million, $100 million, and $190 million respectively.