Crypto Exchange Binance Issues Update on Stolen Bitcoin (BTC), Says Trading Freeze Incoming

‎‎‎ ‏‏‎

Leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance says it has beefed up security since last week’s breach, and is working to make the platform fully functional for traders.

After an extensive search, the company says it has confirmed no additional funds were stolen and that initial reports that 7,000 Bitcoin (BTC) were lost are accurate.

The $40.5 million hack forced Binance to disable withdrawals and deposits. The team worked throughout the weekend to make sure the system is ready for use and now plans to resume deposits and withdrawals on Tuesday, May 14th. For upgrades to be fully implemented, however, trading will need to be suspended.

According to the announcement,

“We have made some significant overhauls to our system, with a large number of advanced security features added and/or completely re-architected.”

“We aim to fully resume deposits and withdrawals on Tuesday. The time will be communicated at a later stage, depending on how the testing goes. This upgrade will require a trading halt. We will update you again tomorrow.”

The team is doing another all nighter. I check Twitter once every couple hours, or when my team tells me to retweet something. Pushing forward, and making progress, and some big changes. Thank you for your patience during this tough times! 🙏🙏🙏

— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) May 11, 2019

Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao says the team has made various changes to key procedures.

“We are making significant changes to the API, 2FA, and withdrawal validation areas, which was an area exploited by hackers during this incident.

We are improving our risk management, user behavior analysis, and KYC procedures. We are working on more innovative ways to fight phishing. We also have a number of additional security measures being implemented not directly visible on the front end.”

The exchange will also integrate new hardware devices to improve security.

“We will be adding hardware device support, such as YubiKey and other devices, very soon. We will run an event and give away 1,000 YubiKeys as soon as that feature is implemented.”