How fake job interviews helped hackers steal $6.34 billion from Binance

Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, detailed a $6.34 billion hack in a recent investigation. The hackers employed fake job interviews and malicious code to execute the heist over a span of four hours on October 29. The FBI linked the attack to North Korea-affiliated hackers, though North Korea has refuted these allegations.

Binance managed to recover 98% of the stolen funds by using its own assets, while the remaining funds were in less-traded currencies. $2.85 billion of the stolen amount has been frozen by the platform. The attack began as early as June when hackers targeted a platform engineer with a virus-laden version of Homebrew, a popular programming software.

Later, in September, the hackers approached another engineer via a legitimate job-search platform, posing as representatives of a fictitious company. After building trust, they requested the engineer to download a test exercise for a job interview, which contained malware. This malware enabled the hackers to infiltrate Binance's internal systems.

On October 20, they utilized their gained access and an internal AI tool to take control over software used by two other engineers. Nine days later, they activated malicious code, initiating the attack. The news of the hack caused a sharp decline in the prices of major cryptocurrencies.