Cryptocurrency exchange places $250,000 bounty on hackers' heads

Binance, the China-based cryptocurrency exchange that was targeted by a failed heist last week, has placed a $250,000 (£179,000) bounty on the heads of the cyber-criminals responsible. The failed raid saw the would-be thieves - still unidentified - using a phishing scam to acquire coin traders' login details before generating API keys to access their accounts, buying large quantities of viacoin and then attempting to exchange that suddenly-inflated currency for bitcoin. It was at this point that the site's moderators noticed the suspicious activity and stepped in to block the transactions, preventing any money from being stolen. "To ensure a safe crypto community, we can't simply play defence," Binance said in a statement. "We need to actively prevent any instances of hacking before they occur, as well as follow through after-the-fact.