US banking regulators have contacted lenders after last week’s $6.3bn hack of Binance, seeking to establish whether their systems show any related vulnerabilities, reported Reuters.
Supervisors at the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) asked banks about unusual activity and interruptions to their services, according to sources.
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One source at a bank contacted by regulators said it had not experienced service disruption. Employees prepared talking points for customer discussions, although the bank has received few questions so far.
“The incident raises uncomfortable questions about whether traditional security approaches can keep pace with increasingly sophisticated attackers,” Retail Banker International’ parent company GlobalData banking and payments senior analyst Phoebe Hodgson said.
“This demands a fundamental change in thinking” adding that “Banks must assume that some defenses will eventually fail and design their operations to prevent a single compromise from becoming a financial catastrophe.”
Banks are examining the Binance hack, which is believed to be the largest financial heist in history. Two people familiar with the work said lenders are also running diagnostics to determine whether their systems could withstand a comparable attack.
A cybersecurity team at one of the largest US banks contacted Binance counterparts within hours of the incident, according to one source.
The team is producing an internal report that is expected to result in a review of the bank’s systems and may lead to cybersecurity updates.
It remains unclear whether the bank could be exposed to the same methods used in the Binance attack, the source said.
A preliminary investigation found that the breach may have started with a compromised laptop used by a DevOps engineer.
According to the exchange, the attacker subsequently accessed an internal system and made unauthorised withdrawals.
The exchange said it had worked with industry partners to freeze affected assets, identifying about $3bn so far. It said user funds remained safe.
Hodgson added: “Ultimately, the Binance hack reinforces a critical message for financial-services leaders: the next generation of cyber resilience will be defined not by whether institutions can prevent every breach, but by whether they can stop attackers from turning that breach into irreversible financial loss.”
