Jersey cryptocurrency firm pays ‘ransom’ to ethical hacker

Thursday 22 August 2019

A local cryptocurrency firm has had to pay out a “bounty” after falling victim to a digital breach – by an “ethical” hacker.

Binance Jersey had their security compromised last week, when an individual claiming to be a “security researcher” took control of their Twitter page.

In a tweet, the anonymous user warned: “I managed to successfully overtake Binance official domain (binance.je) that I could have easily turned into a huge phishing scheme and scam millions.”

But, while professing that he was “in a huge need of money”, the hacker instead decided not to do so.

Pictured: The hacker warned that he could have used the security flaw he'd found to "scam millions".

“I hope that community [sic] will respect it,” he wrote.

In another tweet, the infiltrator urged Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao to contact him via Twitter profile @LightningNetwo9, which only contained one tweet: “#binance”.

In a statement following the hack, Binance Jersey later revealed that the breach had not been malicious – but was instead carried out by a “white hat hacker”.

Such hackers are IT experts, who routinely attempt to break into protected systems and networks to test their security and expose potentially dangerous flaws.

Describing their hacker as “cooperative and open in his communications with our security team”, Binance said that they were able to restore their domain name within minutes and regain control of their Twitter page hours later.

#Binance Jersey Twitter Breachhttps://t.co/4KjUc6J5zG pic.twitter.com/7pLu9npNEy

— Binance.je (@BinanceJE) August 17, 2019

“All funds on Binance.je are safe. No data was compromised,” the Binance Security Team reassured.

In return for exposing the security issue, the firm, which runs a program rewarding ethical hackers up to $100,000 depending on the severity of the flaw they report, confirmed they had issued a “bounty” to the infiltrator.

The incident is now being investigated further.

Binance launched in Jersey in January this year, offering “secure and reliable” cryptocurrency trading of Euros and British Pounds.

Speaking at the time of its launch, CEO Mr Zhou commented: “Jersey has in place an existing legal and regulatory framework for cryptocurrency into which Binance Jersey easily fits.

“Jersey is an undisputed pioneer in blockchain development leveraged by this strong framework and talent pool. Binance Jersey hopes to increase Jersey’s competitive advantage in banking from other jurisdictions competing for cryptocurrency-related business as the island’s cryptocurrency regulation allows.”