Binance says hackers plotted $6.3 billion heist for months

Binance says the hackers behind last week’s $6.3 billion theft spent months preparing, using social engineering, tampered software, and the exchange’s own AI tooling to reach its wallet systems. In September, someone posing as a project director contacted a Binance software engineer via a job platform, conducted two interview rounds including a live video call, then directed him to download an “assignment” containing malicious code. The company says its security tools failed to detect it. On Oct. 20, the week before the theft, the attackers used that computer and an internal AI tool to take control of two engineers’ work machines. Nine days later, permissions enabled them to drain Binance’s hot wallets over nearly four hours, moving funds through about 12,000 wallets, according to Elliptic.