Binance hack: How one wallet trick led to a $6.3 billion breach

The Binance hack has exposed how an attacker used a single successful Ethereum wallet authorization to gain control of a major exchange wallet, as Binance estimates that the October 29 security breach affected approximately $6.3 billion in cryptocurrency. Summary Binance estimates the October 29 security incident affected roughly $6.3 billion in cryptocurrency. Blockaid traced the attack to 50 EIP-7702 authorizations, with one successfully targeting the Binance 14 hot wallet. Binance’s initial investigation points to a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop, but the exchange found no evidence of a leaked private key. Tether and Circle froze more than $2.3 billion in stablecoins linked to the attack, while Binance reported approximately $3 billion frozen across assets. Binance suspended deposits and withdrawals during security checks and pledged to cover losses through its SAFU fund and company reserves. According to blockchain security firm Blockaid, the attacker exploited Ethereum’s EIP-7702 authorization mechanism to redirect Binance’s heavily used Binance 14 hot wallet to a malicious smart contract. The attacker submitted 50 authorizations in one transaction, but only one matched ...