Binance hack decoded: How compromised laptop put $6.3 billion crypto assets at risk

Black October has found another victim. This time it is Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange. The company has suspended all deposits and withdrawals via its platforms as it investigates a security incident.

Update: Binance has confirmed that deposits are available for users again. "Deposits remain unaffected and continue to operate as normal," the company said on X. However, withdrawals remain paused for now. "We expect to resume (withdrawals) within 48 hours," Binance said. The crypto exchange added that it was tracing the "full attack path" through the compromised employee laptop.

While the investigation is still in its initial phase, Binance says it could impact assets worth $6.3 billion. The company has clarified that it will cover all losses linked to this incident. This breach could be the largest cyber incident ever, surpassing the previous publicly known record set by hackers who stole almost $1.5 billion from Bybit in 2025.

But what was behind this breach? And what has Binance found so far? Here is everything that we know so far.

1. What is the suspected Binance hack?

According to Binance, hackers likely gained access to its servers to make unauthorised transactions. In an update on X, the crypto exchange put the impacted worth of assets at $6.3 billion. So far, Binance has managed to freeze almost half of those assets. “We have worked with blockchain partners to freeze affected assets, with ~$3 billion frozen on-chain so far,” the company wrote.

When reports of the breach surfaced, former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ, wrote on X, “It does look like a hack.” He earlier told customers that their “funds are safe!” Zhao founded Binance in 2017 and remains a key shareholder, but gave up its management in 2023 as part of a deal with US authorities.

2. Who is impacted?

While Binance says that as much as $6.3 billion worth of assets may be at risk, the number of impacted users remains unclear for now. Though the company's US division, Binance US remains unaffected.

Binance is said to have over 300 million registered users globally across over 100 countries. We may have to wait for more details from the company to understand the number of impacted users. There are no official figures on the number of Binance users in India.

3. What caused the breach?

In an update on X, Binance said that it is likely that the breach was linked to a laptop of one of its developers. “The security incident may involve a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop,” the company wrote.

This, Binance added, may have given hackers access to “to a service container and submit unauthorised withdrawal transactions.” Though, the company insists that so far there is no indication that hackers had access to any user’s crypto wallet. “We have found no evidence of any wallet private key leak,” it added.

Binance confirmed that it will share more details after the investigation was completed, including a “detailed technical post-mortem.”

4. Binance to cover all losses

After reports of the breach emerged online, Binance suspended all deposits and withdrawals for users on the platform. The company also engaged law enforcement and blockchain intelligence partners to trace and recover funds.

“We are working non-stop to resolve this issue. Binance will cover all losses,” the company said. Binance will cover all losses through its Secure Asset Fund for Users, or SAFU, and company funds. The emergency reserve fund was established in 2018 as a backstop for customers in extreme situations and is generally maintained at around $1 billion. Binance said it would publish an updated Proof of Reserves after remedial work was completed.

5. Cryptocurrency issuers freeze assets

The Binance breach has raised alarm bells throughout the world of cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency Tether’s CEO Paolo Ardoino said the company had frozen about $1.55 billion to $1.6 billion in its cryptocurrency “related to a potential Binance exchange hack.” He added, “Protecting the industry and our partners is our main priority.”

Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of the cryptocurrency Circle, said the company was “closely tracking reports of a potential exploit involving Binance” and had frozen more than $800 million in assets.

Bitcoin fell sharply after the alerts, with reports showing declines of between 3.2 per cent and about 5 per cent, and at one point dropped below $77,000. Ethereum and Solana also declined.

On the same day, Polymarket temporarily halted trading after a third-party provider was compromised.“Anyone who has been impacted will be made whole,” the platform said.

Earlier this week, Coinbase, another cryptocurrency platform, had acknowledged that a security incident with a third-party vendor had left some customer details exposed. Though no funds had been compromised.

The month of October has been particularly taxing in cybersecurity, with cases like eMudhra’s digital certificates, and PHP vulnerabilities being exposed. The State Bank of India (SBI) also had a security breach that exposed nearly 3,900 customer records.