The $6.3bn breach at cryptocurrency exchange Binance highlights the need for stronger identity and access controls across the digital asset sector, according to an industry expert.
Stefan Deiss, chief executive of Swiss technology firm The Hashgraph Group, stated that the incident reflects an identity verification issue rather than an advanced technical breach.
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The comment comes after a preliminary investigation indicated that the breach may have started with a compromised laptop belonging to a DevOps engineer. The attack last week forced Binance to temporarily suspend deposits and withdrawals.
Deiss said: “The sheer scale of this hack makes it look like a one-off, but it isn’t. AI is helping attackers find weaknesses faster than companies can fix them, and attacks like this are becoming more common, not less.
“However, this attack didn’t rely on anything state-of-the-art. The attackers compromised one engineer’s laptop and used his trusted access as their own. That is an identity problem: once a system believes you are someone it trusts, it lets you act.
“Banks learned to solve this the hard way. In 2016, North Korean hackers used stolen credentials to try to move nearly $1bn out of Bangladesh’s central bank. Banks responded with tighter controls so that no single login can move large sums without independent checks.
“Crypto has grown so quickly that its security has focused on protecting the blockchain itself, while controls around the people and systems inside the business have been slower to catch up.”
According to Deiss, artificial intelligence is accelerating the discovery of corporate vulnerabilities.
He added: “Getting identity right is paramount, especially as AI agents arrive. Companies are now letting agents pay suppliers, move funds and approve transactions, and one hidden instruction in an email can trick an agent into working for an attacker.
“A nation state can try that at scale. Every agent needs a verified identity, a human accountable for it, firm spending limits and an off switch.”
Following the attack, Binance said user funds are safe. The attack is said to be among the largest cryptocurrency thefts to date.
The Hashgraph Group develops enterprise security and identity infrastructure built on distributed ledger technology.
