The Binance hack was the culmination of “Black October,” a month-long hacking spree affecting hundreds of companies and institutions around the globe — and experts warn that traditional banks are sitting ducks for the next attack, proving the world is utterly unprepared for the era of the super-intelligent thief.
The incidents hit a wide range of targets including the Federal Election Commission, Sony, John Deere, Oracle Health, Burger King Japan, the open-source coding agent OpenCode, the State Bank of India, and French grocery stores.
On Thursday, North Korean hackers stole an estimated $6.3 billion from Binance in the largest crypto heist in history. The FBI on Saturday confirmed that the notorious North Korean hacking unit TraderTraitor was behind the theft.
The funds were swiped in merely 20 minutes with the North Koreans gaining access to the system by hacking into multiple “breach points” including one engineer’s computer.
“Every hack is concerning, but Binance is most concerning,” Dr. AK Pradeep, founder and CEO of tech company Sensori.AI, told The Post.
“Banks will be next, individual payment mechanisms will follow. The world has never been prepared for super intelligence thieves,” he said.
On Saturday, Binance announced that they had already covered 90% the lost customer funds.
“Binance will fully cover the financial impact of the funds stolen in this incident. We will continue to demonstrate this commitment through measurable progress, transparent reporting, and concrete actions,” the company said in an update shared to social media.
The shocking volume of high profile of hacks may be tied to advancements in AI models like Claude Code which have drastically lowered the skill barrier — meaning prospective malicious actors can let their AI agents to do the dirty work of finding flaws in cybersecurity programs and protocols.
Two major vulnerabilities were identified in PHP — a programming language that powers more than 70% of all websites, including government sites.
The vulnerabilities “could allow attackers to take control of affected web servers without prior access or authentication,” the NSA warned in an Oct. 21 advisory.
“These risks are serious enough to require immediate patching across United States government departments and agencies.”
The FEC on Tuesday temporarily took its electronic filing system and other public-facing services offline after detecting suspicious activity on its network, according to reports.
The outage lasted approximately 41 hours, according to HuffPost, and disrupted the filing of mandatory 24-hour and 48-hour campaign spending reports ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
The FEC declined to comment on the hack.
