Reported by BBC Technology
Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, has been hit by what is believed to be the largest crypto hack ever at $6.3bn (£4.7bn).
Crypto is a type of digital asset which does not exist physically like cash or coins. Instead, people use digital wallets on their smartphones or computers to access and manage it.
Richard Teng, Binance's co-chief executive officer, said it is working with the authorities to work out what has happened and it will cover all losses.
More from the original report
Binance says it is beginning to recover crypto funds after $6.3bn hack thought to be largest ever
Binance is the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, where people can buy, sell and trade digital currencies, like Bitcoin, as well as deposit and withdraw them.
It was founded in China in 2017 and has hundreds of millions of registered users worldwide.
The exchange has come under scrutiny over the past few years - notably in 2023, when its then-chief executive, Changpeng Zhao, resigned after pleading guilty to money laundering violations.
Last year, a lawsuit in the US accused the company of helping send millions of dollars to US-designated terrorist organisations.
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The hack happened to Binance's global centralised exchange, Binance.com.
Binance.us, which provides trading services specifically for US residents, said it has not been affected by the issue.
In a statement, Teng said: "Our initial investigation suggests this security incident may have started with a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop.
"That gave an attacker access to a service container, where they submitted unauthorised withdrawal transactions."
He said the hack "was not a simple 'one-click' action" but a "more complex attack process".
Raghu Nandakumara, vice president of industry strategy at cybersecurity platform Illumio, said this could mean an engineer was "talked into taking a test" and malware - malicious software – "landed on their laptop while they did it".
Because the laptop already had sufficient security privileges, Nandakumara said early reports suggest it became "the attacker's route straight into production, and from there to the wallets".
"You can build a vault with mathematical…