The greatest theft crypto history: So it was the hacking of Binance for $6.3 billion
On October 29, 2026, at 20:05 UTC, began the greatest theft criptomonedas ever recorded. In less than 20 minutes, approximately $6.3 billion were extracted from wallet of Binance distributed in 10 blockchains different.
This is more than 4 times the previous record, which was the theft of $1.5 billion to the exchange Bybit in 2025 (also attributed to actors, North Korea).
How did it happen? Why one of the exchanges of the world’s largest was vulnerable? And most important: How you might have detected and real-time content?
PART 1: WHAT HAPPENED (FACTS CHECKED)
The vector of initial attack
According to ABC News, The Hacker News, and CNN:
FACT: The laptop of an engineer, DevOps was compromised. This understanding allowed the attacker:
- Access to a container of internal service
- Send withdrawal transactions not authorized
- Move criptomonedas to external addresses
The speed of the attack
FACT: The movements occurred in approximately 20 minutes. This is critical: this means that the systems of traditional detection (that depend on manual reviews) were completely useless. For the moment that a human operator would have noticed something, most of the money was already out.
Multiple vectors of access uncovered after
SPECULATION PARTIAL (Binance confirmed but no public details): During the initial investigation, Binance emphasized that they found ‘points of breach additional’ beyond the laptop computer from DevOps. This suggests:
- Access to deeper level than just a workstation
- Possibly credentials compromised in multiple systems
- Or a access that dates back to a prior commitment
However, Binance has not publicly disclosed the specifics of these other vectors.
PART 2: THE IMPACT (ACTUAL SIZE)
Total amount: $6.36 billion
Although initially reported $6.3 billion, TRM Labs specified USD $6.36 billion accurate as the estimate based on analysis of blockchain.
What he managed to contain Binance
FACT: Binance and its partners blockchain managed to freeze approximately $3 billion of assets on-chain. This means:
- Less than 50% was detained
- The attackers already had more than $3 billion in motion towards exchanges/mixtures of coins
Coverage of losses
FACT (according to Al Jazeera and multiple sources): Binance announced that it would cover all losses using:
- Your SAFU (Secure Asset Fund for Users) — an insurance fund created specifically for this
- Own funds of the company
This is remarkable because it means that the end users are not lost money, but Binance itself absorbed a hit of $6.3 billion.
Cessation of the service
FACT: Binance has suspended deposits and withdrawals immediately. It is estimated to be resumed in 48 hours after ‘to be replaced completely the service, retreats, and addresses related.’
PART 3: ATTRIBUTION — NORTH KOREA
Multiple signatures of analysis blockchain independent came to the same conclusion:
- TRM Labs: Attributed directly to actors, North Korea
- CNN: ‘Blockchain evidence suggests the hack originated in North Korea’
- Pangolin Intelligence (referred to in searches): Also came to a similar conclusion
Why? Patterns of behavior coincide with the group Lazarus, that:
- Was the attack on Bybit in 2025
- Has patterns of money laundering similar
- Coordinates movements of funds feature
PART 4: THE FAILURE OF INFRASTRUCTURE (ANALYSIS)
Critical failure #1: Credentials of DevOps without defense-in-depth
If the laptop was compromised and that was enough to get access to service containers with permissions of withdrawal, means:
- He had not MFA mandatory in the retirement system, or
- The MFA was bypasseado because I was in the same device
- There was No separation of responsibilities (a DevOps should not be able to withdraw funds alone)
Critical failure #2: withdrawal Transactions without validation in real time
FACT: That $6.3 billion have moved in 20 minutes without detection means that:
- I had not real-time alerts for transactions abnormal
- There were No limits per transaction or period
- Not had human review to movements of this size
This is a failure of operational catastrophic. Any exchange that handles thousands of millions should have:
- Alert thresholds: Transactions > X value trigger immediate review
- Automatic limits per period: you can’t move $500M in 1 minute
- Correlation with behavior-based: Detect that it is anomalous that a DevOps withdrew money
Critical failure #3: Access to multiple ‘points of breach’
SPECULATION CONTROLLED: The ‘points of breach extra’ that Binance was found after suggest:
- The attack was not a exfiltration of a single session
- There was probably prior reconnaissance and lateral movement
- It’s possible that access to outside for weeks/months before they were to run theft
This would indicate that the detection of anomalies in access to sensitive systems completely failed.
PART 5: HOW IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE ANSWER
Scenario: intelligent System for detection of incidents
If Binance had a system of detection and automated response to incidents working in real time:
In the second 1-30:
- Alert: ‘Container service accessed by credential of DevOps at 20:05 UTC’
- Correlation: ‘This access is 400x larger than the average daily
- Action: automatic Suspension of this token access
In the second 30-120:
- Alert: ‘the First transaction of a withdrawal of $100M detected’
- Detection: ‘Address destination is unknown and blacklisted in string’
- Action: Freeze automatic background
In the second 120-600 (10 minutes):
- Correlation: ‘5 withdrawals different abnormal blocks of 10 strings’
- Analysis: ‘Pattern attacks all the wallets at the same time’
- Action: Suspension global service withdrawals + climbing team on-call
Result: instead of $6.3 billion, is lost maybe $100-200 million before contain.
PART 6: WHAT IS 24CEVENT AND WHAT WOULD HAVE HELPED?
For exchanges, payment platforms, and any of the financial infrastructure, the detection and incident response is not a feature — it is survival.
24Cevent is a platform for the management of incidents that would have detected this attack in the first few seconds and he would have content automatically:
1. Detection multi-source
- Access anomalous systems (credentials compromised)
- Anomalous behavior in transactions (volume, target, speed)
- Event infrastructure (containers being accessed, changed services)
24Cevent correlacionaría all these signs in real time and to generate an alert of ‘attempted theft of funds in progress’ before the first million dollars.
2. Escalation automatic
- Abnormal event → automatically blocks access
- If it is confirmed by analysis → attends on-call
- If it is critical → paralyzes the affected service to review
On Binance: instead of wasting time identifying what was going on, the system would have braking on dry.
3. Correlation of incidents
24Cevent would have connected the dots:
- ‘Laptop DevOps was committed’ → research
- ‘Retreats abnormal began’ → it is not a coincidence
- ‘Multiple destination addresses’ → coordinated attack
- ‘Side access to other systems’ → lateral movement in progress
This would have been to climb a ‘CRITICAL INCIDENT IN PROGRESS’ automatically.
4. Automation of response
Without 24Cevent, Binance had to do this manually:
- Detect
- Notify
- Investigate
- Make decisions
- Run locks
- Contact exchanges to freeze funds
With 24Cevent, many actions have happened automatically while investigating.
CONCLUSION: THE LESSON
Binance is a company excellent, but even world-class companies are vulnerable when:
- There is No defense-in-depth in credentials of critical systems
- There is No real-time detection of anomalies in the financial
- The answer is manual, not automated
For exchanges, fintech, and providers of financial infrastructure, the message is clear:
The difference between losing $100 million and losing $6.3 billion is to have a system that detect, correlate, and respond to incidents in less than 10 seconds.
24Cevent was designed exactly for this: to detect the attack before it causes real damage.