Hackers steal $570 million in Binance BNB crypto tokens

Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Hackers stole 2 million Binance BNB cryptocurrency tokens -- worth roughly $570 million -- according to a Friday statement from the BNB Chain.

Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Chao tweeted that the issue "is contained now" and users' funds "are safe."

"There was an exploit affecting the native cross-chain bridge between BNB Beacon Chain and BNB Smart Chain known as "BSC Token Hub," a BNB Chain statement said. "A total of 2 million BNB was withdrawn. The exploit was through a sophisticated forging of the low-level proof into one common library."

BNB Chain said it was able to "minimize the loss." The vast majority of funds remain under control, according to BNB Chain.

BNB's value dropped more than 3% Friday morning to $285.36 a coin, according to CoinMarketCap data.

BNB Chain said in a blog post that governance votes will be taken on what to do about the hacked funds and to set up a "White hat program" offering $1 million for each bug found in the BNB Chain system, as well as whether or not to establish a bounty for catching hackers that would pay up to 10% of recovered funds.

BNB Chain also said a new "on-chain governance mechanism" will be introduced to defend against future possible attacks.