Binance Is SAFU: 7 Ways We Secure Your Assets 24/7
When it comes to security, many people think of Binance as the most secure cryptocurrency exchange in the world. What drives this perception of our security? We achieve it through relentless efforts to safeguard our entire platform, from using the latest technology, to helping individual users protect their accounts. These actions take root because we value our users’ security first and foremost.
With that said, it has been no easy task. We prevent more than a few dozen hacking attempts each day on average and we have encountered just about every possible irregular activity. To ensure our user funds remain safe, we approach security from various fronts, from technology and investments to people and education.
Today, we share some of our best practices when it comes to security on our Binance platform. We also share the stories of John, Maxi, Kendrick* and others who have seen Binance’s top-notch security in action.
We Use the Latest Technology to Secure our Platform
At Binance, we invest in the latest technologies that are used to maintain the integrity of each account and transaction. These technologies involve artificial intelligence (AI) solutions used in identity and facial recognition, as well as big data analytics solutions that monitor each and every movement made on the exchange in search of suspicious activity, and cyber forensic investigations that trace the roots for each attempted misdeed on the platform.
For a concrete example of this technology in action, consider what happened to John*:
John, who was holding 46 BTC in his Binance account, was a victim of a SIM swap attack. The hackers compromised John’s phone number, email, and two-factor authentication, and gained access to his Binance account. Before the attackers could successfully withdraw the funds, our system flagged the activity as unusual and the account was automatically frozen. This all happened before John realized an attack had been attempted and thwarted. By the time he reached out to Binance Customer Support, he was elated to find out from customer service representative Maxi* that we had kept his funds SAFU.
Our Customer Service Can’t Be Beat
Binance’s support team has helped thousands of people retrieve their lost funds. Over a wide array of cases, our support team goes the extra mile to ensure customer satisfaction, retrieving more than 3,229,045.91 crypto tokens of different denominations for users in 2018.
Our approach to customer service is unique in that we ensure our users receive both assistance and education.
When Maxi was addressing John’s ticket, she could have just informed him about the blocked withdrawal and told him to replace his SIM card. But she went the extra mile and guided John on how to regain access and better protect his account. This level of assistance protects the user, while also making sure that our platform encounters fewer vulnerabilities.
Our State-of-the-Art Risk Control System Constantly Thwarts Unusual Activity
Technology and personnel combine to form a proprietary risk management and control system that analyzes every movement that takes place on Binance. With an almost 20-month history of transactions involving trillions of dollars in trades, our system is constantly on the lookout for irregular trades and any suspicious activity.
Admittedly, this relentless pursuit for security has landed us some isolated complaints that we might be too secure. While this may be frustrating from some customers’ point-of-view, we would rather err on the side of caution, as attackers are improving their tactics day-by-day in their attempts to defraud others.
We also encourage you to do your part as well: through Binance Academy, we’ve created dozens of articles and videos that will teach you about cryptography, information security, security management, and everything in between. Read on to learn how you can keep your account more secure.
Binance Academy Educates the Public about Crypto Security
Part of Binance Academy’s mandate as Binance’s education arm is to provide as much information as possible regarding security topics in the crypto world. Along with general blockchain and cryptocurrency educational materials, security-related articles include:
- and many others.
Over the past six months, Binance Academy has delivered 2,937 days, 12 hours and 43 minutes worth of educational content. Kendrick* was one of the hundreds of thousands of people who accessed the educational website. Kendrick faced the same problem as John and found his 2 BTC in safe hands through our security system. He has since asked various questions about how to protect his account and other crypto assets. After he was led to Academy through his chat with customer service, he became proactive in learning how to secure his crypto.
It is important to remember that many attacks involve social engineering, or a series of deceptive tactics done via social interactions to gather someone’s account information with malicious intent. Thus, we can’t rely solely on technology to provide a holistic security solution, and we can’t simply wait for a user to suspect an attack in order to thwart it. Instead, we employ a holistic, multi-pronged approach to ensuring the security of our platform, from the main trading platform to the individual user.
With Binance’s Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), We Invest in Our Safety Commitment
At Binance, we want to ensure that each person using our exchange and each asset entrusted to us are protected, even in the unlikelihood that our security measures may fail. We created the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) to provide insurance to potential breaches.
With that being said, from a security standpoint, our goal every day is to never use SAFU, and we hope to achieve this by doing our part in providing the most secure crypto platforms possible for all of our Binancians, whether centralized or decentralized.
Binance DEX Shows the Next Level in Crypto Security
We recognize that some users have qualms about entrusting their funds to a centralized exchange. After all, blockchain is about decentralization. Despite our ongoing best effort to maintain a very safe centralized platform, we are providing a new option to offer more security for our users. This is where Binance DEX comes into the picture.
Binance DEX, which recently launched its testnet, showcases an extension of Binance’s user-friendly, security-first mission to the decentralized environment. On DEX, we offer features that make it easier for you to safely link your crypto addresses and wallets to the decentralized platform where you have full control of your private keys. The promise of a DEX is that you fully manage your assets, which includes the responsibility to safeguard them without relying on centralized storage. As we further develop DEX, the Binance security team will be developing a new paradigm for SAFU.
Binance Has an All-Star Team of Big Data and Risk Management Professionals
At the core of our investment in user safety is a leadership team that sets the tone for a platform-wide culture prioritizing security. From there, we built a team of exemplary professionals in fields such as AI, big data, cyber forensics, and others. Every day, these security professionals refine our AI and big data systems with their deep understanding of sophisticated risk factors that need to be addressed within the trading ecosystem.
But the task of ensuring the security of Binance is not only limited to the security team. In fact, everyone who works with Binance takes all necessary precautions to prevent such cyber attacks, from protecting their identities to following the best security practices. In other words, we live the SAFU life.
We also want everybody to live the SAFU life. SAFU is beyond keeping funds safe, it also involves keeping yourself safe in the crypto world. This also extends to working as a community to quash threats to our safety. Very soon, we’ll launch a bounty program designed to reward Binancians who will help us detect and fix potential vulnerabilities in the platform. Follow this blog for the specifics in the coming days.
* All names have been replaced with pseudonyms for security reasons.