Binance Swirled into ‘KYC Leak’ Turmoil, Binance not Safu Anymore

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Three months after a serious security breach was discovered on Binance, when around 7,000 BTC was stolen from the platform, another hilarious incident came along. On Aug. 7, Binance was reportedly swirled into ‘KYC Leak’ turmoil, where a large number of Binance users’ private KYC information, including passport numbers, ID card, credit card number, were live-streamed in a Telegram group named “FIND YOUR BINANCE KYC”.

As of press time, more than 10,000 people have joined the telegram group. Multiple people have posted Binance users’ KYC pictures online. The incident reportedly has sent shock waves in the crypto community and is spreading further ahead. Changpeng Zhao or CZ, Founder and CEO of Binance, rushed to Twitter to calm down its followers at the very earliest, warning people not to fall into the “KYC leak” FUD, they are investigating, and will update the users shortly.

However, the latest response from its top management further agitated the users and caused a backlash from the community, with many claiming to withdraw their funds and deactivate their Binance accounts.

“FUD? Did you saw leaked passports with faces? how you will compensate this? binance is not safu...” said Andrew, a Twitter user.

“How is it FUD? there are literally hundreds of KYC identities on a telegram group free for all to see, containing the word "BINANCE" written by the user for KYC，” another man named Master Chang said.

Till now, it’s still not clear whether users’ information has been leaked or hacked, or otherwise it’s old news of 2018 as CZ claimed.

Whatever the truth is, Binance finds it in a series of troubles since this year, starting from May 7, when 7,000 BTC was compromised from its platform, worth about 41 million dollars at that time. BNB tumbled sharply following the incident, witnessing a decline of around 10% within 24 hours. Additionally, Binance Charity Foundation (BCF), the charity arm of Binance, has recently slid into a donation transparency crisis, where only under $6 million worth of crypto, less than half of the committed amount, could be accounted for on the website.

Plus, many users have complained that Binance IOS app has been down for months which Biance claimed to take serval days to bring it back. According to downdector.com, a leading website which detects the service interruptions and outages for digital firms, the most reported problems on Binance is “log in” and “breakdown” issues.

To trust or not to trust? That is the question for all Binance users. Binance needs to use hard&soft tactics to prove its technology capabilities and its commitment to transparency and security goals.

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[joniboini]

How can you say Binance is not safe anymore where it's not proven that those data are stolen from Binance?

Their story of phishing is reasonable to believe, but of course, it needs proper investigation, likely from a 3rd party to find out which is really happening with those leaks. If there's no one except Binance who investigate their own case, it's possible that every finding won't be revealed 100%. No doubt about it.

[bitsurfer2014]

Absolutely! No exchange is totally safe anymore and none will ever will including the mighty Binance exchange! but I guess we cannot arrive on any conclusions just yet pending a thorough investigation on  this matter. Sooner or later, the truth will eventually come out and then we could assess the integrity of Binance exchange but until then, we should be updated with latest news about this matter and be always be vigilant  in terms of our own security in this digital world. Imho.

[BitHodler]

It wouldn't even surprise me if this turns out to be a competitor trying to make them look bad. The competition between the countless services within crypto can turn real ugly real fast.

It's not a secret that a few exchanges are trying to benefit from Binance's US exit, and why not go a step further? OKEx has been very friendly towards BSV right after Binance's delisting announcement.

If we go back in time a bit, CZ actually worked for OKEx but ended up leaving to compete with them. It's somewhat of a conspiracy theory, but not completely unrealistic after their sudden BSV support hoping to onboard their users.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

It wouldn't even surprise me if this turns out to be a competitor trying to make them look bad.

That would be an unprecedented bit of shenanigans, I think.  I did not see the data that was leaked, but it sounds like it consists of a bunch of selfies holding ID if I'm reading this right, and that would take a lot of work for even the most dedicated saboteur.

More likely Binance did get hacked or otherwise had their customers' data leaked from the inside.  I'll definitely be watching this story unfold.  But hey, this is the company that had 7000BTC stolen from them, right?  Obviously there are security issues they might not have fully addressed if this all is true.

No exchange is totally safe anymore and none will ever will including the mighty Binance exchange!

Some are safer than others, though.  I kind of thought Binance was fairly safe, but this kind of throws everything in doubt.

[Vispilio]

I think it would be very smart for investors to have some reservations against CZ & other Binance spokespeople, and not buy into their well oiled propaganda machine so haphazardly...

Binance has a very active presence on all social media, and they immediately block and silence most dissenters, so it would stand to reason there might be a discrepancy between the philanthropist impeccable self-image they are depicting vs reality.

[Vishnu.Reang]

This is one of the reasons why I am against the mandatory KYC verification. Now only god knows what these hackers are going to do with all those ID cards. BTW, there is something seriously wrong with Binance. This latest incident comes just a few months after some hacker stole BTC7,000 from their hot wallets. If I was a Binance user, then I would not keep any of my coins there.

[Febo]

This is one of the reasons why I am against the mandatory KYC verification. Now only god knows what these hackers are going to do with all those ID cards. BTW, there is something seriously wrong with Binance. This latest incident comes just a few months after some hacker stole BTC7,000 from their hot wallets. If I was a Binance user, then I would not keep any of my coins there.

Every time you KYC you rick that those information's will at some point in future, it can happen 10 years from now, leak out. Someone can steal them or even they can sell them. And this not only at crypto exchanges but everywhere you KYC. And you do a lot from time you entered kindergarten.

[adamlillian]

This is a rare case and I think hackers have released fake news and created FUD, then they will buy BNB for a cheap price.
because if they hacked Binance's security system, they had all the KYCs for many days, not just February 24, 2018.

[pishite]

Three months after a serious security breach was discovered on Binance, when around 7,000 BTC was stolen from the platform, another hilarious incident came along. On Aug. 7, Binance was reportedly swirled into ‘KYC Leak’ turmoil, where a large number of Binance users’ private KYC information, including passport numbers, ID card, credit card number, were live-streamed in a Telegram group named “FIND YOUR BINANCE KYC”.

As of press time, more than 10,000 people have joined the telegram group. Multiple people have posted Binance users’ KYC pictures online. The incident reportedly has sent shock waves in the crypto community and is spreading further ahead. Changpeng Zhao or CZ, Founder and CEO of Binance, rushed to Twitter to calm down its followers at the very earliest, warning people not to fall into the “KYC leak” FUD, they are investigating, and will update the users shortly.

However, the latest response from its top management further agitated the users and caused a backlash from the community, with many claiming to withdraw their funds and deactivate their Binance accounts.

“FUD? Did you saw leaked passports with faces? how you will compensate this? binance is not safu...” said Andrew, a Twitter user.

“How is it FUD? there are literally hundreds of KYC identities on a telegram group free for all to see, containing the word "BINANCE" written by the user for KYC，” another man named Master Chang said.

Till now, it’s still not clear whether users’ information has been leaked or hacked, or otherwise it’s old news of 2018 as CZ claimed.

Whatever the truth is, Binance finds it in a series of troubles since this year, starting from May 7, when 7,000 BTC was compromised from its platform, worth about 41 million dollars at that time. BNB tumbled sharply following the incident, witnessing a decline of around 10% within 24 hours. Additionally, Binance Charity Foundation (BCF), the charity arm of Binance, has recently slid into a donation transparency crisis, where only under $6 million worth of crypto, less than half of the committed amount, could be accounted for on the website.

Plus, many users have complained that Binance IOS app has been down for months which Biance claimed to take serval days to bring it back. According to downdector.com, a leading website which detects the service interruptions and outages for digital firms, the most reported problems on Binance is “log in” and “breakdown” issues.

To trust or not to trust? That is the question for all Binance users. Binance needs to use hard&soft tactics to prove its technology capabilities and its commitment to transparency and security goals.

There is no more trust in exchanges, since they no longer have anonymity.
It is better to use decentralized exchanges where reliability and anonymity are at a high level, but could not do without minuses, for example, weak trading on currency pairs.

[Oilacris]

Back to back issues with Binance?This isn't good for the exchange. 7k BTC hack plus this KYC leak? One more issue and this exchange popularity would go down for sure.

They had been investigating but expect that results or reports wont really be completely disclosed,for sure there would be informations would be hidden specially they are the ones who do make investigation.

[shield132]

Government wants companies to know their customers, they open all gate for illegal things and they clearly know it, that's where money is created. Binance had a lot of KYC documents, didn't they know that it's important to protect users data? Yes, they knew but at the same time they knew that data costs money, a lot of money. Let's form it as a leak or hack and sold for solid profit, we will do illegal thing with legal reason and earn a lot of money, so why not? <-- That's the thought of Binance.

[peter0425]

This is a rare case and I think hackers have released fake news and created FUD, then they will buy BNB for a cheap price.
because if they hacked Binance's security system, they had all the KYCs for many days, not just February 24, 2018.

Stop with the FUD argument, it's been proven that those faces are real and it did come from Binance, whether it was hack or came from a third party.  I know crypto journalism is pure of garbage, but this article is very interesting to read, https://www.coindesk.com/a-bitcoin-extortion-gone-wrong-inside-binances-negotiations-with-its-kyc-hacker

[BitHodler]

More likely Binance did get hacked or otherwise had their customers' data leaked from the inside.  I'll definitely be watching this story unfold.  But hey, this is the company that had 7000BTC stolen from them, right?  Obviously there are security issues they might not have fully addressed if this all is true.

Binance claims that the selfies posted were obtained from a third party they outsourced the KYC verification part to. I don't have much reason to question that given how large Binance is and how many new users they onboard.

The only question is how the hacker managed to gain access to the servers of this third party. It could just as easily be a bunch of Indians they hired to do this work, which isn't that uncommon even for large tech corporations.

[el kaka22]

I think the real problem turned out to be that during the time binance used a third party organization for KYC procedure they were hacked, not binance itself by the way, the company they worked with on KYC got hacked and information during that time got hacked from that company that was supposed to be binance users. It does relate to binance because they should have picked a better company but at the same time that shows binance wasn't hacked it was another company binance worked with and that allows us to have a trust on binance once again.

It doesn't matter if they get hacked or not they eventually make it back when it is about money, you can literally get destroyed if your KYC gets stolen though, bad people would be more than willing to spend 300 bitcoins on getting 10k+ KYC information since that would allow them to money launder so much more easily.

[Vishnu.Reang]

More likely Binance did get hacked or otherwise had their customers' data leaked from the inside.  I'll definitely be watching this story unfold.  But hey, this is the company that had 7000BTC stolen from them, right?  Obviously there are security issues they might not have fully addressed if this all is true.

Binance claims that the selfies posted were obtained from a third party they outsourced the KYC verification part to. I don't have much reason to question that given how large Binance is and how many new users they onboard.

The only question is how the hacker managed to gain access to the servers of this third party. It could just as easily be a bunch of Indians they hired to do this work, which isn't that uncommon even for large tech corporations.

How can they be so irresponsible? KYC verification is such a secure process and it should be done by the Binance staff. Now it looks like they had outsourced it to the lowest bidder, with scant regard for security of the users. This one incident is enough to trigger a customer boycott of Binance. I never had an account with them, and in the future also I will never consider opening an account there.

[bitsurfer2014]

No exchange is totally safe anymore and none will ever will including the mighty Binance exchange!

Some are safer than others, though.  I kind of thought Binance was fairly safe, but this kind of throws everything in doubt.

Indeed it will surely raise some cloud of doubt from the crypto-community and Binance is in some kind of a dilemma right now since the burden of proof - "that no intrusion happened" rest on their shoulders and they should  prove it convincingly! I do hope they can mitigate the side effects of this issue and resolved it accordingly which kind of remind me of Mt. Gox incident which is quite scary.

[Vishnu.Reang]

I don't see anything surprising if the KYC pictures of people get leaked because we can found more than by just looking at their facebook accounts and also lots of apps we installed on our smart phones taking pictures of us without out permission.So if you are on internet then you are not safe anymore even google keeps data about you with the name of super cookies.

What are you talking about? In Facebook you won't find the scanned copies of Passport and drivers license. If anyone is so irresponsible to post them in Facebook, then obviously he needs to face the consequences. The problem here is that ordinary users, who would be otherwise careful about their privacy were forced to send the scanned copies of their ID documents to Binance.

[SquallLeonhart]

OH MY GOD, not again, I guess that there I someone that is really out there to destroy Binance by all possible means, and Binance needs to be extremely cautious, since they didn’t succeed in bringing them down through their exchange wallet from the last fund they stole, and I guess that they have seriously tightened their security for wallets, which could be why the hacker decided to attack their data database.

I just  pray and  hope that this is not true because this will really be a blow to them the second time in a year. Let wait for them to make their investigation and we see if it is real or not, if this information giving here is real, Binance might just be on its way to losing its relevance for life, it shows that they can no longer be trusted then with their security.

[serjent05]

Hmm, Binance were hacked in the previous month so KYC leak is very possible.  I do no think this one is just a FUD, though I will be watching how this issue will unfold.  Lucky I did not undergo KYC in Binance exchange so I do not need to worry about this leak.