Binance probes suspicious crypto transfers worth up to $5.8 billion as Tether and Circle freeze $1.79 billion in stablecoins linked to the activity. Binance is investigating a potential security incident after billions of dollars in cryptocurrency moved from wallets linked to the exchange on October 29. The transfers raised concerns about a possible hack, while Tether and Circle moved to freeze stablecoins linked to the suspicious activity. The full scope of the incident remains unclear, and the reported outflows shouldn’t automatically be treated as confirmed losses. According to The Block, blockchain analyst Spreek identified approximately $3.55 billion in incoming transfers to an initially unidentified wallet. “Onchain data flagged by analyst Spreek shows about $3.55 billion in incoming transfers to the unlabeled wallet, with nearly $900 million subsequently moved across other wallets.” The Block reports. “Conor Grogan, a senior director and product leader at Coinbase, says the amount is up to $5.8 billion.” Coinbase executive Conor Grogan estimated that the total value of the movements could reach $5.8 billion. I think the number is potentially up to $5.8B. Tether has blacklisted a large portion of this. https://t.co/ANz2DiXc8S pic.twitter.com/BfscU7ENSo — Conor (@jconorgrogan) October 29, 2026 These figures come from blockchain tracking and different estimates, so they don’t necessarily represent the amount stolen. BREAKING: The Binance hack has grown to about $5.6B drained across Ethereum, Bitcoin and Tron, on-chain trackers say. If confirmed, it would be the biggest crypto heist on record. Tether and Circle have frozen about $1.8B in stablecoins, and Circle says it acted "in… https://t.co/UzgOxw9jLE pic.twitter.com/9fBEaaZrWj — International Cyber Digest (@IntCyberDigest) October 29, 2026 Binance acknowledged the reports and said its security team was investigating. The company had not publicly confirmed a breach in the initial reports, making it important to distinguish between suspicious transactions and a verified compromise. “We are aware of reports of a potential security issue and we are actively investigating.” He wrote in a post on X. “Our security teams are reviewing all relevant information with urgency, and we will provide updates through official Binance channels as soon as we have verified information. Users should remain cautious of scams and should not trust unofficial links, messages, or requests for account information.” We are aware of reports of a potential security issue and we are actively investigating. Our security teams are reviewing all relevant information with urgency, and we will provide updates through official Binance channels as soon as we have verified information. Users should… — Yi He (@heyibinance) October 29, 2026 This statement, reported by The Block, reflects the company’s position at the time. Binance also urged users to be cautious of unofficial messages and links, a relevant warning whenever a major security incident attracts public attention. Blockchain records showed large transfers from Binance-linked hot wallets to a wallet that wasn’t previously identified as belonging to the exchange. Hot wallets hold cryptocurrency in systems connected to the internet, allowing exchanges to process withdrawals and other transactions quickly. Their online availability also makes their security controls particularly important. The transfers involved Ethereum, stablecoins and other cryptocurrencies. Some funds were later moved to additional wallets, making it harder to track all the transactions. Investigators must determine who initiated the transfers, whether they were authorized and whether an attacker gained control of the wallets. They also need to establish whether the funds belonged to customers or Binance itself. Large transfers alone don’t prove a hack. However, unusual movements involving large amounts of cryptocurrency require immediate investigation. One of the most significant developments was the response from the companies behind two major stablecoins, USDT and USDC. According to The Block and Forbes, Tether and Circle froze approximately $1.79 billion in stablecoins associated with the suspicious transfers in the initial reports. The figures subsequently changed as the investigation developed. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino later said the company had frozen more than $1.567 billion in USDT linked to a potential Binance exchange hack. These amounts reflect reported actions at different points in time and shouldn’t be combined without checking whether they refer to distinct assets and addresses. Tether froze more than 1.567B USDT related to a potential Binance exchange hack. Protecting the industry and our partners is our main priority. Stay safe everyone. — Paolo Ardoino (@paoloardoino) October 29, 2026 The freezes demonstrate an important feature of centralized stablecoins: their issuers can restrict transfers from addresses they control through their token contracts. This can help contain suspected theft, but it doesn’t provide the same control over assets such as Ether or Bitcoin. Nor does freezing a balance guarantee that every transferred asset can be recovered. The incident also highlights a practical tension in crypto security. Stablecoins offer the convenience of blockchain transfers, but their centralized issuers retain powers that can make a difference during an investigation. Binance maintained that customer funds were safe, while co-founder Changpeng Zhao, widely known as CZ, said the activity appeared to be a hack. Zhao no longer manages Binance’s platform, but said he expected customers’ funds to be fully covered. The company said its user funds were “completely safe.” “Our teams are aware of reports of a potential security issue and are actively investigating. User funds are completely safe. Our security teams are reviewing all relevant information with urgency, and we will provide updates through official Binance channels as soon as we have verified information.” the company states. “Users should remain cautious of scams and should not trust unofficial links, messages, or requests for account information.” That assurance is important, but it doesn’t replace a technical explanation of how the transfers occurred or independent confirmation of the final impact. A security investigation must establish more than whether an exchange can cover a potential loss. It should determine how the activity was authorized, whether credentials or signing mechanisms were compromised, which systems were involved and whether the attacker retained any access. For customers, the immediate priority is to avoid becoming a secondary victim. Attackers often exploit uncertainty around a major incident to distribute fake announcements, impersonate support staff and direct users to fraudulent websites. Users should rely on official Binance communication channels, avoid unexpected links and never disclose passwords, authentication codes or wallet recovery phrases in response to unsolicited messages. Security teams should also watch for phishing emails that use the incident to demand urgent account verification. Attackers may exploit the situation to launch a separate scam. The key lesson is that blockchain transparency does not guarantee operational security. Public ledgers show transactions, but they don’t reveal who authorized them, how attackers may have gained access or whether an exchange’s internal security controls failed. As the investigation continues, it’s important to distinguish between reported transfers, confirmed theft and funds that can be recovered. The figures may change as analysts trace more wallets and stablecoin issuers take further action. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, Binance)
Japan Airlines (JAL) has announced that a data breach at Amadeus’s Passenger Service System exposed the data of about 92,000 customers. JAL Group, which operates the airlines JAL and Japan Transocean Air, uses the system to handle passenger reservations, ticketing, and check-in. According to its announcement, Amadeus notified the airline on October 23, 2026, that unauthorized access to its systems occurred between August 10, 2023, and September 23, 2026. As a result of this lengthy breach, the threat actor accessed reservation codes (PNRs), names, flight dates, routes, and travel classes for approximately 90,000 customers. An additional 2,000 customers had the above data types exposed, plus their email addresses, phone numbers, passport numbers, nationalities, frequent flyer numbers, and flight, ticket, and seat numbers.
A fake cryptocurrency trading app called Padre Terminal, previously available on the Apple App Store for iOS devices, has been linked to the theft of approximately $23,000 from 27 Solana wallets. Blockchain investigator Iris confirmed that one victim was compromised through the malicious App Store app, but has not determined how the other affected wallets were compromised. The researcher says the app drains wallets after unsuspecting users import their private keys into it. Padre was a cryptocurrency trading platform, mainly used to buy and sell meme coins on Solana. It was later renamed Terminal by pump.fun, a platform focused on creating, buying, and selling cryptocurrency “meme coins” on the Solana blockchain. Iris says the legitimate Padre trading service, now Terminal by pump.fun, is web-only, so any mobile apps impersonating it, including the one previously available on the App Store, are malicious.
Some attacks take real skill. Others just need someone to leave a door open. This week has both. Exposed passwords, old bugs still getting exploited, and trusted software doing things it shouldn't. There's a strange mix of clever tricks and careless mistakes. Hackers are borrowing trust from familiar apps, websites, and AI tools. Some are using AI to speed things up. Others are leaving their
42 publicly listable cloud buckets containing 18 billion files, including exposed credentials, database dumps and backups. The Ransomnews research team counted 484,142 publicly listable cloud storage buckets in October 2026, holding 18.05 billion files. They built the count from the search engines that index open cloud storage and published it as the Ransomnews Cloud Exposure Index, written by Mantas Sasnauskas. “No file was opened for this index. Every number below comes from bucket names, file extensions, file counts and last-modified timestamps. That is a deliberate limit. It keeps the research on the right side of the line, and it turns out to be enough to see where the sensitive material concentrates.” Ransomnews states. “We are calling it the Ransomnews Cloud Exposure Index, and we will rerun it quarterly so the numbers can be compared over time.” The researchers used bucket names, file types, file counts and last-modified dates to collect their data. They did not open any files, allowing them to identify where sensitive information might be stored without accessing the content. They plan to repeat the research every three months to track changes over time. Amazon S3 accounts for 72% of the exposed buckets, roughly in line with its share of the market. This does not mean S3 has weaker security than other providers. Azure Blob, however, appears 2.5 to 3.6 times more often than expected among buckets named for backups, data exports and payroll records. The researchers also found 321,058 files related to credentials and keys. Of the exposed .env files, 67% were last modified in 2026. Below is the split by provider, from a snapshot taken on October 7: ProviderOpen bucketsShareAmazon S3347,98471.9%Azure Blob68,53214.2%Google Cloud Storage53,13111.0%DigitalOcean Spaces11,0692.3%Alibaba OSS3,4260.7%Total484,142100% A lot of these buckets are public on purpose, holding website assets, CDN mirrors, open datasets and podcast archives. So the index isn’t 484,142 breaches. It’s the pool where breaches hide, and the rest of the report narrows it down to the stores that should never have been listable. “Azure, by a wide margin relative to its size. Azure Blob holds 14.2% of open buckets, but 37% of the 1,459 buckets with “backup” in the name, 42% of the 399 named for exports, and 51% of the 505 carrying HR or payroll terms.” continues the report. “Buckets named for logs, customers and databases sit at 35% to 36%, all around two and a half times Azure’s baseline.” The skew only shows up for operational data. Buckets named “dev” sit at Azure’s baseline of 15 percent, and “test” and “staging” fall below it, at 9 and 7 percent. The authors suspect Azure storage accounts more often hold line-of-business data such as backups, exports and HR systems that enterprises run on Microsoft, while S3 and Google Cloud carry more application assets. They call it a hypothesis the counts suggest and don’t prove, and it’s the first thing they want to test next time. By sector, retail and e-commerce names lead with 5,666 buckets, mostly storefront assets. The more worrying number is that names tied to regulated sectors (finance, healthcare, education, government, legal and HR) appear on 10,891 unique open buckets. Those are the places where a stray file most likely holds personal, health or financial records, and where regulators expect to hear about it. Sector (by bucket name)Open bucketsFiles in themRetail and e-commerce5,666269.9MFinance and insurance3,50858.0MHealthcare2,70947.9MMedia and entertainment2,696136.2MEducation2,39360.6MGaming2,29679.0MTravel and hospitality1,714118.7MReal estate1,13760.7MGovernment and public sector1,00036.2MLegal97811.3MCrypto63011.9MHR and payroll5058.4M Healthcare-related names appear in 2,709 buckets containing 47.9 million files. The researchers identified them using terms such as “hospital” (135 buckets), “patient” (135), “clinic” (277) and “dental” (331). HR and payroll is the smallest sector, with 505 buckets, 259 of which are hosted on Azure. These figures are based on names, not proof of ownership. The search matches parts of words, so “store” can refer to object storage as well as shops. A single bucket can also appear in two sectors. The exposed buckets also list about 4.7 million database and dump files, 15,130 mailbox archives, and tens of millions of spreadsheets and documents. Credential files are particularly concerning because they can turn a cloud misconfiguration into a real intrusion. File typeWhat it isFiles listed.pemCertificates and private keys113,285.envApp secrets and API keys80,495.p12Certificate bundles with keys33,268.keystoreJava and Android keystores27,229.ppkPuTTY SSH private keys24,302.pfxWindows certificate bundles23,352.ovpnOpenVPN client configs15,079.jksJava keystores2,421.htpasswdWeb server password files695.tfstateTerraform infrastructure state475.kdbxKeePass password vaults457 Each of these exists to grant access. A .env file is where developers keep database passwords and API keys. A .tfstate file is Terraform’s record of a whole cloud setup, often with secrets in plain text, and a .kdbx vault is encrypted but now open to anyone who wants to guess passwords offline. Some .pem files are public certificates and some files are test fixtures, so the counts are a ceiling on live secrets and not a measure of them. It’s still a big ceiling. Database files make up most of the sensitive material by volume: File typeWhat it usually holdsFiles listed.sqliteEmbedded app databases2,561,807.bakDatabase and server backups752,055.sqlDatabase dumps687,446.sqlite3Embedded app databases488,176.dumpDatabase dumps176,603.mdb / .accdbMicrosoft Access databases36,467.dmpMemory and crash dumps12,809.pst / .ost / .mboxMailbox archives15,130.emlSaved emails4,549,665.csvData exports and recordsat least 69,580,112.xlsx / .xlsSpreadsheets42,544,997.docxWord documents24,936,788.pdfDocuments, invoices, scansat least 106,191,393.logApplication and server logsat least 61,310,809 The exposed buckets contain thousands of virtual disk images, including VMware, Hyper-V and QEMU files. A single disk image can contain an entire server, including credentials. Some exposures involve active systems. Of 80,495 .env files, 67% were last modified in 2026. Certificates and SQLite databases include both recent and older files. Backups appear older, with 89% of the 752,055 .bak files last modified before 2025. Almost all PuTTY key files date from 2024. Recent leaks need urgent attention, while long-standing exposures point to poor security management. The problem is ongoing: at least 113.6 million files were added to publicly listable buckets in the seven days before September 9. Over the previous 30 days, these included more than 21,000 SQL dumps, nearly 21,000 backup files, 4,477 .pem files and 1,298 .env files. Public .env files can expose database passwords that ransomware affiliates and initial access brokers look for. Similar credentials appear in stolen-data logs, but in this case, attackers do not need to infect a device. They only need to search for exposed files. Cloud providers already offer settings to prevent public access. Organizations should enable S3 Block Public Access, disable anonymous access to Azure Blob storage, and enable public access prevention in Google Cloud. These controls should apply at account or organization level to prevent new storage buckets from becoming public. Organizations should also scan their storage for sensitive files such as .env, .sql, .bak, .pem, .ppk, .tfstate and .kdbx. Terraform state files and virtual disk images should be treated as secrets, stored privately, encrypted and monitored. Backups should never be publicly accessible, and recovery procedures must be tested. One exposed bucket may be a mistake, but many often indicate a wider process failure. Organizations need to fix the underlying security controls, not just individual buckets. The research has some limitations. The team queried search engines on October 25, while the bucket list was current to October 7 and the newest indexed file dated September 9. File-level data may therefore be about a month old. Counts are also capped at one million per query, so researchers split larger categories into date ranges and added the results. Some limits apply. The team queried the search engines on October 25. The bucket list was current to October 7 and the newest indexed file was dated September 9, so file-level figures lag by about a month. The index caps any single count at one million, so larger types were split into date windows and summed. A last-modified date shows when a file was written, not when it was exposed, and a listed file isn’t proof that its contents can be read. No bucket is named in the report. Exposures with a known owner in regulated sectors are going through responsible disclosure, with national CERTs copied where the owner is public sector or doesn’t respond. “Rotate any secret that has ever sat in a public bucket. Closing the bucket does not un-leak the key. Assume anything that was listable was copied.” conlcudes the report. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, Cloud Buckets)
A flaw in Telegram for Android could be chained with two other bugs to take full control of a victim's phone through a voice call, once the victim answered, according to security startup NebuSec. The attacker needed only an ordinary Telegram account. Telegram fixed the flaw in version 12.10.4 of the app, released in late September, and NebuSec disclosed it on October 29. Combined with an
26,400 credentials that developers left in public code on Gitee, a Chinese code-hosting service, still worked when a researcher tested them. Anyone who copied one from that code could have used it. Independent researcher Ben Zimmermann found them by scanning 7.25 million public Gitee repositories and reported the results on October 28. Most were keys for cloud and AI services, led by
Cisco released security updates to patch a denial-of-service zero-day in Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and Threat Defense (FTD) software that attackers are exploiting to remotely crash vulnerable firewall devices. Tracked as CVE-2026-76418, this high-severity vulnerability affects devices running ASA and FTD software with configurations containing the 'webvpn' keyword and SSL VPN enabled on at least one interface. Successful exploitation allows unauthenticated, remote attackers to trigger a denial-of-service (DoS) condition, causing the device to reload unexpectedly. Cisco advised customers to patch vulnerable firewalls after its Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) discovered evidence that the flaw was being exploited in the wild earlier this month. However, the company didn't provide indicators of compromise and hasn't shared additional information about the attacks, including which organizations are being targeted or who is exploiting the flaw.
Cisco has released patches to address a high-severity security flaw in Secure Firewall Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software and Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) Software that it said has been exploited in the wild. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-76418, is rated 8.6 on the CVSS scoring system. Successful exploitation could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause the
Volt Typhoon used disposable relay chains to hide zero-day attacks on critical systems. Lumen linked Silent Train to at least four zero-days. Lumen’s Black Lotus Labs has spent three years tracking a covert network it calls Silent Train, which it ties to Volt Typhoon, the China-linked APT group. The cybersecurity firm says the network hid exploitation of software flaws the vendors didn’t know about yet. Black Lotus sent hundreds of victim notifications along the way, and the investigations that followed revealed the exploitation of at least four confirmed zero-days and one likely. “Volt Typhoon’s Silent Train is a covert network designed to gain and maintain access to the technologies businesses rely on to manage devices, networks and critical operations.” reads the report published by Lumen. “Black Lotus Labs® tracked how the group used rapidly changing chains of compromised infrastructure to conceal its activity while exploiting previously unknown vulnerabilities in centralized management platforms.” Silent Train first showed up in November 2023, shortly before the first takedown of the KV-botnet, Volt Typhoon’s earlier network of hijacked routers. Activity rose after the second disruption. The group dropped persistent infrastructure and moved to disposable chains of compromised devices that it could rebuild whenever it wanted. Each session began on a rented server outside the United States. It then passed through another server and compromised small-office routers, home devices and IoT equipment in other countries. Finally, the traffic passed through a compromised device in the U.S., close to the target. This helped the attackers make their activity look like normal local traffic and bypass location-based blocks and IP reputation filters. On average, the chains passed through about four devices before reaching a U.S. IP address. Some used as many as six. Lumen identified more than 27 types of devices used in the network, including TP-Link routers and Fortinet appliances. Some of these devices had no known vulnerabilities, suggesting that Volt Typhoon may have used previously unknown exploits to compromise them and create relay points. “We observed more than 27 device classes exploited and used in Silent Train operations, ranging from SOHO and IoT devices like TP-Link routers and Netgear Orbi devices to enterprise platforms like Fortinet appliances and CyberPanel servers.” the report continues. “Some relay device types lack known vulnerabilities, suggesting Volt Typhoon leveraged undisclosed zero-day exploits to set up a single relay in a four-to-six hop chain and indicating a willingness to commit significant resources to protecting future access capabilities.” The attackers exploited exposed web interfaces and installed only the tools needed to connect the devices through SSH. These included temporary SSH services, keys, configuration files and tools already available on the systems. At the end of each session, they removed all traces of their activity and dismantled the relay chain. Sessions lasted about four hours on average, although some lasted only minutes. The attackers could also build a new chain in less than two minutes, suggesting that they had partly automated the process. The group worked with strict discipline. New device types arrived about one per quarter, and about one per month during the 2023 and 2024 build-out, always tested outside the U.S. first. Roles never changed: Intelbras modems served only as overseas relays, Netgear Orbi devices only as the U.S. hops facing victims, and the server providers stayed separated by layer too. By early 2025, enterprise platforms like Fortinet, Cisco, PRTG, Mirth Connect and CyberPanel joined as final hops. They stayed up one to three months and supported several intrusions. The group also added reverse tunnels using the open-source proxies Chisel and FRP, and the old and new methods ran in parallel. Volt Typhoon used Silent Train only during key stages of its attacks, including exploiting vulnerabilities, stealing credentials and data, and maintaining access to compromised systems. Each session targeted between one and five victims, often just one organization. The activity was carried out by human operators, mainly from Monday to Friday, between 9 a.m. and 10 p.m. China Standard Time. The group also paused operations for several weeks around Chinese New Year. The group targeted tools used to manage endpoints and networks, as well as SD-WAN systems and other control platforms. These systems can manage hundreds or thousands of devices, allowing attackers to reach many systems without moving through the network in the usual way. This approach also helped them leave fewer traces. After the attacks, investigators found webshells running in memory, stolen credentials, misuse of built-in features such as remote file transfers, and deleted logs. The four confirmed zero-day campaigns hit Versa Director in 2024, N-able N-central through CVE-2025-8875 and CVE-2025-8876, Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN through CVE-2026-20127, and VeloCloud Orchestrator through CVE-2026-16812. The Cisco bug is a CVSS 10.0 flaw, and the group kept exploiting it well after Cisco disclosed it in February 2026. In the Versa case, the group used an in-memory JAR webshell to limit forensic evidence and reach downstream customers. The likely fifth is Quest KACE. The campaign hit more than 30 victims and faded after Quest’s October 2025 security updates. “The campaign affected more than 30 victims, followed vendor remediation timelines and declined after Quest’s October 2025 security updates.” the report states. “Despite limited forensic evidence, the available data supports a moderate-confidence assessment that Volt Typhoon exploited a zero-day vulnerability.” The actor stayed on the KACE server and used its admin features to take credentials. Victims include telecoms, government agencies, defense contractors, satellite and emergency communications, universities with ROTC programs, managed service and IT firms, and critical infrastructure such as water, energy, transportation, maritime, rail and aviation. What they share is access to bigger networks or customers. Hawaii, California and Texas were the top locations for several years. Lumen can’t say why, but the pattern fits pre-positioning for a crisis in the Indo-Pacific. “For enterprise leaders, the lesson is clear: systems with broad administrative reach can become high-value gateways to the entire organization and its customers. Reducing internet exposure, accelerating patching, strengthening access controls and preserving security telemetry are essential to detecting threats earlier and limiting their impact.” Lumen concludes. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, China)
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