A hacker drained funds from Binance after hijacking an employee's laptop, raising fresh doubts about how safe even the biggest crypto exchanges really are.

• A DevOps engineer's laptop got compromised, giving the attacker a way into Binance's internal systems.
• From there, the attacker reached a service that approves withdrawals and used it to push through unauthorized transactions.
• Once inside that approval system, the attacker wasn't limited to draining just one account — the access was much broader.
• Binance's early investigation points to a hacked laptop rather than a stolen master key or an inside job, though those possibilities were initially considered.

Outlook: Expect Binance to tighten internal device security and withdrawal approval controls, and for other exchanges to face pressure to audit similar weak points.