Key Facts

Binance, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, suffered a cyberattack on 29 October 2026 that led to estimated losses of about $6.3 billion. The exchange paused deposits and withdrawals, later restoring deposits, and said about $3 billion had been frozen on-chain, with Tether freezing over 1.567 billion USDT and Circle over 800 million USDC. Binance's early probe suggested a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop let the attacker reach a service container and submit unauthorised withdrawals, though it found no evidence that wallet private keys were leaked. It promised to cover the losses from its SAFU fund and corporate treasury. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis said with high confidence that North Korea's TraderTraitor group, linked to the Lazarus Group, was responsible.

GK Context

Crypto exchanges hold users' assets in custody, so security failures create counterparty and custody risk. In India, income from virtual digital assets is taxed at 30% with a 1% TDS, and virtual asset service providers were brought under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in 2023. CERT-In is the national agency for responding to cybersecurity incidents. The Lazarus Group is a North Korea-linked hacking network blamed for the 2024 WazirX hack and for stealing crypto to bypass sanctions.