Binance made waves as it announced that it is back in operation after the security upgrade it was working on was completed, all following the recent hack that took the crypto exchange offline.
On Wednesday, at 03:00 UTC, all Binance services went offline so that the security upgrade was started. There was also a 2-hour extension that was announced because there were tasks that took more time than anticipate.
After the security upgrade was over, Binance published an update, declaring that trading will be back online at 13:00 UTC. Users were allowed to process deposits and cancel the open orders. Withdrawals are announced to be available after trading starts again.
Withdrawals and deposits were both offline because of the hack that happened last week. According to Binance, the hack led to losses of 7,000 BTC, all from the hot wallet of the cryptocurrency exchange. The exchange customers are not going to be affected though.
After the breach happened, it was announced that the cryptocurrency exchange will go through significant security changes. The upgrade operations focused on the API used by Binance, the 2FA authentication and the validation of withdrawals, all with the purpose of reducing future hack risks.
Binance did not want to disclose all the details of the security upgrade. However, this is completely normal since security concerns do apply. What was mentioned is that risk management was going to be improved, together with specific procedures aimed at know-your-customer procedures, all with the purpose of fighting phishing attempts. The back-end also includes extra security procedures.
