Last week, cryptocurrency exchange Binance lost an estimated US$6.3 billion in what is being called the largest crypto theft on record. You might think a story about crypto has nothing to do with your business. The interesting part is not the money, though. It is how the attackers got in.
It started with a laptop
Binance says its initial investigation suggests the incident may involve a compromised laptop belonging to one of its DevOps engineers. From there, the attacker reached an internal system and submitted unauthorised withdrawals. Binance says it found no evidence that its wallet keys were leaked. In other words, the vault was not cracked – someone walked in using a trusted employee’s device.
The FBI has since attributed the theft to a North Korean hacking group it calls TraderTraitor. Binance has resumed withdrawals and says it has now covered around 95% of the stolen assets. Most businesses would not have that kind of cushion.
Why this matters to a small business
Attackers rarely need to break your systems if they can borrow a staff member’s access. One infected laptop can expose email, your accounting software, your bank portal and your shared files. The same basics that protect a large company protect yours:
- Keep every device updated. Turn on automatic updates for Windows, macOS and web browsers, and replace machines that no longer get security updates.
- Use proper endpoint protection on every laptop, not just the office PCs, and make sure someone is actually watching the alerts.
- Limit access. Staff should only have access to what their role needs. Admin rights should not be used for everyday work.
- Turn on multi-factor authentication for email, Microsoft 365, banking and remote access.
- Require a second person to approve payments and changes to bank details, so one compromised account cannot move money on its own.
None of this is expensive or complicated, but it does need to be checked rather than assumed.
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