Could this be an issue of how the smart contract is setup up or who and how the hot wallet is setup itself? As a lasting solution, these guys should try to put lucrative bug bounties to try minimise on such compromises.
This would be the main assumption I'd come to since they only hacked that one exchange. However, it wouldn't be a hack with bsc or eth - it'd be a hack on the exchange and one they're liable for (assuming they were the ones who badly scripted the contract).
This is really bad. Hot wallets are the “hot” target of these hackers nowadays in centralized exchanges and wallets. However, there’s no way for them to get past through the cold wallets unless they know the seed phrases and mnemonic phrases from the owner which is impossible. I haven’t deposited some of the coins and tokens that I have on my wallet yet where they can be traded on Bitmart exchange. Not safe to use centralized exchanges in storing our hard-earned cryptos.
Bad key management while moving cold wallets to hot might also cause issues here, something they should be able to adapt to though (eg sending too much funds to a cold wallet should mean the funds should only be loaded onto an air gapped machine).
I don't know whether its the biggest hack till date or just another normal hack. Clients of Bitmart has nothing to worry about this hack since they will get there money back in any case. This is where exchanges have edge over normal wallets, if your coins are on exchanges then such hacks wont rip you off from your money, your money is safe.
What makes you so certain exchanges can afford to be hacked (unless I read that wrong).
I remember bitfinex losing a third of users' funds a while ago and actually being able to pay them back (eventually - I think it took about 2 years to do). They opened a marketplace for selling the tokens they gave equivelant to a dollar and I remember them trading around 16 cents too.