A serious security breach has hit Singaporean bitcoin exchange BingX. Hot exchanges lost around $43 million on Friday, due to hacker activity. One of the biggest crypto attacks this year, this event raises doubts about the security policies of centralized exchanges.
BingX Hack: What Happened?
Blockchain security companies Peck Shield and De.Fi have seen a strange activity involving the transfer of important funds from the hot BingX wallet. The exchange’s expert team noticed unusual access patterns that suggested a possible attack around 4 AM Singapore time.
Hello @BingXOfficial you might want to check -we see some suspicious withdrawals (>$13.6m) at this address:
– PeckShield Inc. (@peckshield) September 20, 2024
BingX responded by activating its emergency procedures, which included temporarily blocking withdrawals for 24 hours and moving assets to cold storage.
Vivien Lin, who is also the Chief Product Officer of BingX said that “most of the money is still safe in cold wallets” although there are “small losses”.
At around 4am on 20 Sep Singapore time, our technical team detected unusual network access, suspecting a hacker attack on the BingX hot wallet. We immediately began our emergency plan, including the emergency transfer of goods and the lifting of the suspension. There was a small loss of property,…
— Vivien Lin @ BingX (@Vivien_BingX) September 20, 2024
However, several commentators have made conflicting estimates of total theft making this claim less accurate. Despite the fact that further research showed that hackers had stolen more than $43 billion of various cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum (ETH), Binance Coin (BNB), and Tether (USDT), the first test estimated the loss of about millions -26 dollars.
User Payment and Responsiveness
Following the breach, BingX promised to make full compensation to affected customers using its funds. The exchange has emphasized its commitment to user security and transparency. They work on a compensation plan; Lin said they expect to restore the withdrawal services shortly after completing the necessary safety checks.
However, this confirmation did not go down well with cryptocurrency communities who raised doubts about the exchange’s initial communication about the incident. At first, the exchange described it as “wallet protection,” which left users confused and angry because they thought they had been misled about how serious the breach was.
Critics have called for more transparency on centralized exchanges like BingX so that such things don’t happen again.
Increasing Exchange Hacking Trend
The BingX attack fits a disruptive pattern where thieves are gradually targeting a centralized exchange. Indonesian Indodax suffered a similar attack last week, losing $22 million.
India’s largest exchange, WazirX, lost more than $230 million under similar conditions early last year. Many of these attacks have been linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, which is characterized by advanced hacking methods.
Featured image from Pexels, chart from TradingView