The FBI has accused North Korea of orchestrating the theft of more than $6 billion in virtual assets from cryptocurrency exchange Binance in what appears to be one of the largest publicly attributed cryptocurrency hacks to date. In a cyber alert released Saturday, the bureau said the attack occurred on or about October 29. The FBI said it worked alongside the U.S.
Secret Service and IRS Criminal Investigation to investigate the theft and has observed the hackers converting stolen assets primarily into Ethereum. Authorities expect the funds to be moved through decentralized finance platforms and instant-swap services as part of a broader laundering effort. "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) was responsible for the theft of more than $6 billion USD in virtual assets from cryptocurrency exchange Binance," the FBI said in its statement.
Newsweek reached out to the FBI, Binance's CEO and North Korea's mission to the United Nations for comment on Saturday. The bureau urged cryptocurrency companies, blockchain analytics firms, decentralized finance services, exchange operators and node operators to block transactions linked to a list of cryptocurrency addresses allegedly controlled by the North Korean actors. According to the FBI, the activity is part of an ongoing North Korean cyber campaign known as "TraderTraitor," which U.S. authorities have previously linked to high-value cryptocurrency thefts intended to generate revenue for the isolated regime.
The announcement underscores growing concerns among U.S. officials over North Korea's reliance on cybercrime and digital asset theft to evade international sanctions and obtain foreign currency. It comes as North Korea remains one of the world's most prolific state-sponsored cryptocurrency thieves, with U.S. agencies repeatedly warning that stolen digital assets have become a major source of funding for the country's weapons and military programs. The FBI said anyone with information related to the theft or laundering of the stolen assets should contact a local FBI field office or submit information through the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).
Kathryn Westmore, the director of financial crime at UK Finance, told Newsweek on Friday that she believed North Korea was behind the heist. Westmore said that although the hackers attacked Binance, users’ own security on their personal devices would have played a part in whether their wallets were targeted. Responding to the attack, Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, said its initial investigations of the “security incident” indicated that the laptop of a software engineer at the company may have been compromised, which allowed hackers into the platform’s systems and ultimately to green-light withdrawals.
Binance was hit with a crypto heist in 2022, when a hacker artificially created 2 million BNB tokens, amounting to around $570 million. Although the platform stepped in, the attacker was still able to take over $100 million. Blockchain company TRM Labs believes the attack took around 36 hours to prepare, when the main operator got “three small withdrawals from Tornado Cash, a service that obscures where crypto comes from..." Hackers then launched the attack, using code to target two wallets.
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