North Korea denies involvement in the Binance crypto platform heist
A cyberattack on Binance reportedly stole $6.3 billion in digital assets, with hackers using a compromised engineer's laptop. The FBI blamed North Korean hackers, specifically the TraderTraitor group, and said the breach began through a single device breach. Binance froze $3 billion in assets and restored 90% of stolen funds using company money. The stolen funds were moved to Ethereum, and withdrawals are set to resume gradually in the next 48 hours.
- Attackers attempted to steal $6.3 billion in digital funds from Binance.
- Blockchain investigation firms attribute the heist to a North Korean hacking group.
- Binance stated it would cover all losses.
- Binance preliminary internal inquiries suggest the breach began through a single compromised endpoint.
- Binance has already replaced around 80 percent of the stolen tokens.
- The FBI officially attributed a cyberattack and theft of over 6 billion dollars from Binance to North Korean authorities.
- Binance worked with blockchain partners to freeze about $3 billion of the affected assets on-chain.
- The FBI and IRS-CI determined the group primarily transferred stolen funds to Ethereum.
- Binance claims to have 335 million users.
- TraderTraitor was also behind the $1.5-billion heist of ByBit.
- TRM Labs attributes the attack to TraderTraitor.
- Binance stated it will cover the financial impact of the stolen funds.
- Binance plans to resume withdrawals gradually, prioritizing user transaction order data from last week.
- Changpeng Zhao, former Binance chief, commented on the attack.
- North Korea strongly denied FBI accusations regarding the theft from Binance.
- A 2024 United Nations report stated North Korean cyberattack proceeds funded weapons of mass destruction development.
- The combined capitalisation of the two largest stablecoins dropped by about $1.2 billion since Friday.
- The withdrawals represent less than 3 percent of the platform's assets.
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