A crypto-currency exchange has offered $250,000 to anyone providing information which leads to the arrest of cyber-criminals who tried unsuccessfully to attack the company last week.
Binance claimed in a post on Sunday that it could split the massive reward, to be paid in Binance Coin (BNB), if more than one individual comes forward with info which leads to the arrests.
“To ensure a safe crypto community, we can’t simply play defense. We need to actively prevent any instances of hacking before they occur, as well as follow through after-the-fact,” the firm argued.
“Even though the hacking attempt against Binance on March 7 was not successful, it was clear it was a large-scale, organized effort. This needs to be addressed.”
The crypto-exchange has also set aside a massive $10m in virtual currency reserves for rewards in future hacking cases.
“We have also invited other exchanges and crypto businesses to join our initiative. We welcome their participation at any time,” it claimed.
Hackers attempted a sophisticated attack on the exchange last week which began with a large-scale phishing campaign against customers. Once control of these accounts had been taken, the attackers created a trading API key for each account – but then did nothing except bide their time.
Then, within a two-minute period the hackers tried to make trades through these APIs from 31 accounts they controlled on the VIA/BTC market.
“This was an attempt to move the BTC from the phished accounts to the 31 accounts. Withdrawal requests were then attempted from these accounts immediately afterwards,” Binance explained.
“However, as withdrawals were already automatically disabled by our risk management system, none of the withdrawals successfully went out. Additionally, the VIA coins deposited by the hackers were also frozen. Not only did the hacker not steal any coins out, their own coins have also been withheld.”