coindesk.com
Binance’s investigation into the record $6.3 billion hack has uncovered additional security breaches beyond an initially suspected compromised employee laptop, co-CEO Richard Teng said Friday, adding details of the attack and setting a Sunday target to restore withdrawals.
In a video statement on X, Teng said the attackers used a self-destruct mechanism to erase evidence and exploited Ethereum’s EIP-7702 account-delegation feature to take control of a hot wallet without going through Binance’s normal approval procedures.
“This was a complex attack,” Teng said, adding that investigators had found additional points of breach but had yet to determine the full sequence of events.
CoinDesk’s earlier reporting detailed the account-delegation method, which examined how the attacker obtained wallet permissions and used malicious code to drain about $2.5 billion in minutes.
Binance has suspended withdrawals while rebuilding and testing its infrastructure. Teng said the exchange hopes to resume withdrawals by Sunday, within approximately 40 hours, and is reviewing its cloud systems, employee devices, private-key management and transaction-signing procedures.
Teng also reiterated Binance had committed to cover all $6.3 billion in losses using company funds. Binance has reserved more than $6.34 billion, including $5 billion already held in the affected cryptocurrencies, he said. The remaining assets are being purchased through exchanges and over-the-counter (OTC) markets.
He also said the attack targeted Binance’s own hot wallet rather than customer funds. A separate CoinDesk examination of Binance’s reserve data, however, found that the compromised wallets were previously included in a list detailing assets backing customer balances.
Binance plans to publish an initial proof-of-reserves update before releasing a full report Monday, Teng said, adding that the exchange is also working with law enforcement, blockchain investigators and token issuers to recover stolen assets.
Read all of CoinDesk's coverage of the Binance hack.
