A wallet worth over $536 million started acting erratically, prompting the #BNBChain to halt completely!
BNB Chain has been halted after a large BNB holder started displaying erratic on-chain behaviour, suggesting a hack. The erratic nature of the wallet’s on-chain activity suggests it may have been compromised. Stablecoin issuer #Tether has also already stepped in to blacklist the address, preventing it from sending USDT to new wallets.
While the hackers were able to get away with roughly $100 million, the potential amount could have been as much as $570 million.
Patrick Hillmann, chief communications officer at crypto exchange Binance, commented that BNB validators noticed some strange activity taking place on BSC Token Hub, one of the platform’s bridges ,and came to the conclusion the bridge was being utilized to mint additional BNB tokens. He compared the exploit to a group of thieves breaking into the U.S. Federal Reserve, printing their own money and then walking away with it. “What we’re seeing here is that as we see more of these attacks on bridges, the communities that rally around these blockchains are getting much better at shutting them down quickly, updating their systems and being able to prevent a worst case scenario from happening,” Hillmann said.
This hack has a strong smell of a quantum hack although no one can say for sure. This is because the cause of the hack was most likely that the private key of a huge account was compromised. This is exactly the weakest link of crypto facing quantum.
“While it is unknown about what exactly is the cause, this must be some how related to the private key being compromised whether it is bug in the wallet or a reverse engineering of the public key via quantum computer. It is now crystal clear what would happen when a private key is compromised by a quantum hack” said Andrew Cheung, President, 01 Communique.
Quantum-resistant encryption research is a hot topic because it is felt that quantum computers are almost certain to become prevalent and sufficiently powerful to crack existing encryption algorithms. It is therefore prudent to prepare crypto that can survive future attacks, so that data encrypted today remains safe tomorrow, and digital communications can remain secure.
You need to act now!
We at IronCAP™ have been trying to educate businesses and individuals that Q-day (the day the first quantum hack is publicly recognized) is around the corner and everybody needs to gear up. Nation states and governments are already at it, how about you? To learn more, visit www.ironcap.ca.
IronCAP™ is our latest innovation for the post-quantum cybersecurity. This patent-protected, post-quantum cryptographic system is based on the Goppa Code-based cryptographic technology. It has embedded our proprietary subclass of (L, G) making it not only more secured but also has faster cryptographic operations (key generation, encryption, decryption) than the traditional Goppa Code-based technology (McEliece). We are offering a live demonstration for the general public to try and experience the strength of IronCAP™ post-quantum encryption easily. To learn more, visit www.ironcap.ca.