- Kronos Research gets attacked; hackers withdraw funds from Binance.
- Volumes on the exchange remain stable.
Over the weekend, Kronos Research, a firm in Taipei involved in trading and venture capital, faced an unauthorized breach of its API keys.
API keys, short for Application Programming Interface keys, act as access credentials for programs to interact with each other. In the context of Kronos Research, these keys are essential for allowing secure and authorized access to their trading and market-making functions.
Unauthorized access to these keys could potentially lead to security breaches and unauthorized actions on the platform.
The incident led to the suspension of all transactions to safeguard user positions, according to a tweet from Kronos Research. WOO Network also confirmed the temporary halt in transactions for user safety.
Getting into the details
The majority of the funds stolen from Kronos Research, around $22 million, were withdrawn from Binance.
The hacker’s fund went from a centralized exchange (CEX) to Kronos Research and then to the hacker. The hackers might have chosen this route because of the exchange’s withdrawal whitelist, and they had control over the addresses on that whitelist.
Kronos Research's stolen funds mainly came from exchanges, with over $22 million withdrawn from Binance. Hacker's funds flow is CEX -> Kronos Research -> Hacker. The reason why hackers did not directly withdraw funds to their own addresses may be due to the exchange's withdrawal… pic.twitter.com/dfwvhJcmOD
— X-explore (@x_explore_eth) November 20, 2023
A withdrawal whitelist is like a safe list for addresses approved to take money out of an account. It stops unauthorized withdrawals to keep funds safe and secure. It’s a way for exchanges to add an extra layer of protection against hackers.
The hack took money from Binance, affecting its safety and making users worried. This might slow down trading on Binance. They may need to make security better and check what happened.
Despite these events, the overall volume on Binance remained relatively high. This showed how sturdy Binance was in uncertain times.
Source: The Block
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On the other hand, the BNB token was also doing well. In the last 24 hours, the price of BNB surged by 5.63%. At press time, it was trading at $259.85.
The volume at which BNB was trading also surged during this period. Only time will tell if this momentum will be sustained in the long run.
Source: Santiment
