Binance co-founder Yi He did not admit the responsibility of the crypto exchange for the fact that a security breach led to the loss of $1 million by the client.
"Look carefully: this user's account was hacked because his own computer was attacked. After the hack, the hacker was unable to withdraw funds, so he sold the victim's coins, which led to trading losses," she said.
On June 3, it became known that a hacker gained control of a Chinese trader's account on Binance without having a password and access to two-factor authentication. After a number of transactions, the attacker withdrew assets worth $ 1 million.
According to security experts, the attacker intercepted the user's session through a malicious Chrome browser plugin called Aggtrade using cookies.
During the attack, the investor did not receive any alerts from the Binance security system. The trader also noted the slow reaction of the support staff.
In response, the Binance customer service wrote to the user that during the incident, "a hacker stole the login status of your account through a plugin and impersonated you to perform operations and transactions."
用户您好，对于您的遭遇我们非常遗憾，在客服、安全和风控的同事经过案件分析，本着“公开透明”的原则在此复原场景：
1. 事件发生的原因是您的电脑本身被黑客攻破… https://t.co/ir75ThfkR0
According to the exchange, security staff processed the trader's request to freeze his account within "one minute and 19 seconds" from the moment of receipt. However, by that time, the hacker had already completed several transactions using leverage on the compromised account:
"We sympathize with your situation, but according to the information we have received so far, the reason for the loss of your assets is that your respective devices were manipulated due to the installation of malicious plugins. Unfortunately, we have no way to compensate for such cases that have nothing to do with Binance."
The victim herself disagreed with this assessment, suggesting that the company had "known about the malicious plugin for a long time" and also linked the attacker's address to other cybercrimes "three to four weeks ago."
Recall that on November 10, 2023, Poloniex lost almost $ 125 million in cryptocurrencies as a result of the attack. The owner of the exchange, Justin Sun, announced the "successful identification and freezing of part of the assets associated with the hacker's addresses."
Later, the entrepreneur offered the hacker to return the stolen assets for a reward of $ 10 million. However, in May 2024, the criminal transferred funds to the Tornado Cash mixer.