Binance links $6.3 billion crypto theft to compromised DevOps laptop

Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, has linked the theft of about $6.3 billion in cryptocurrency to a DevOps engineer's compromised laptop.

The crypto exchange said the access let attackers submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions after they accessed a service container, and it hasn't yet found evidence of a leaked wallet private key.

"To be clear: the attacker did not simply use one engineer's permissions, and this was not a single 'one-click' action. It involved a more complex attack process. Our investigation has not attributed responsibility to any individual," Binance Co-CEO Richard Teng said.

Binance also said it "uncovered additional points of breach" but was "still gathering the facts, and will share more directly as we have them."

The company confirmed the breach in a statement shared with BleepingComputer on Thursday and reassured customers that their funds were safe.