Photo: Cz / Instagram
CEO Changpeng Zhao, better known as CZ, addressed the community in his recent blog to tell that the team is actively working on revamping and strengthening security measures, procedures, and practices and is already making progress.
The security issues on Binance have become extremely pressing ones after the crypto exchange 7,000 worth over $40 million in a hack that happened earlier this week which CZ referred to as the “security incident”.
Binance Hack
Let us remind that Binance first disclosed that an impressive amount of 7,000 bitcoin on Tuesday, May 7. Hackers had managed to get access to users’ API keys and two-factor authentication codes. As a result, they had an opportunity to withdraw users’ funds from one of the hot wallets owned by Binance.
The exchange reacted practically immediately. As soon as the breach was discovered, Binance suspended withdrawals and deposits. Nevertheless, the trading activities were still allowed.
The exchange promised to reimburse all the loss to the customers who had suffered in the incident. The losses are said to be covered using the exchange’s own emergency fund.
On May 8, some 2500 of the stolen BTC had been shifted around and broken up into small amounts. It is believed that this step was undertaken to hide whether and when the funds will be cashed out.
We have restored limits to 5x (500%). Sorry about the troubles, had to be overly cautious with everything.
— CZ Binance (@cz_binance)
Security Measures
In his blog post, CZ highlighted that the team understands that the situation is really tough for the community and promised to maintain the highest degree of transparency. At the same time, he explained that sharing too many security details any be rather dangerous for security as hackers can use this information as well.
The exchange is actively working on resuming deposits and withdrawals as soon as possible. And a range of updates is expected to be introduced within this week.
Binance is going to make significant changes to the application programming interface (API), two-factor authentication (2FA) and withdrawal validation areas. The exchange will also enhance its risk management, user behavior analysis, as well as KYC procedures.
It is also expected that some new innovative ways aimed at fighting the phishing will be introduced. Moreover, a number of other strong security measures will be applied as well but they won’t be directly visible for users.
Binance will also add support for hardware-based 2FA devices such as YubiKey, for example. According to CZ, it will happen very soon. Once the feature is live, the exchange will run an event and give away 1,000 YubiKeys.
CZ also informed that the team is still investigating all other areas of the exchange’s system to make sure that they are absolutely secured. Many industry-leading security expert teams are helping Binance to enhance the security of the platform and to track and freeze the stolen funds.
The CEO also emphasized that the team is not depressed and ready to continue fighting.
Published at Fri, 10 May 2019 14:45:05 +0000
