Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, said Friday that hackers stole more than $6 billion in what appears to be the biggest crypto theft on record, and blockchain analysts are pointing to a North Korean hacking unit, according to the Associated Press.
What Binance says
The company has set aside more than $6.34 billion of its own funds to cover the stolen assets and has begun recovering assets for users. With blockchain partners, it froze roughly $3 billion. Binance has promised to cover all losses. Deposits were unaffected, while withdrawals were suspended and expected to resume within a day or two. In a video, co-CEO Richard Teng said Binance's own hot wallet was affected, that most user assets sit in offline cold wallets, and that the attackers were not a lone individual and used a "self-destruct mechanism" that complicates the investigation. An initial theory involving a compromised laptop was later widened to include "additional points of breach."
North Korea suspected
Blockchain firm TRM attributed the attack "with high confidence" to TraderTraitor, which it described as North Korea's elite hacking unit, saying about $6.36 billion moved out of Binance wallets on ten blockchains, mostly within about 20 minutes. Chainalysis's CEO also said TraderTraitor was likely responsible. TRM cited similarities to the $1.5 billion Bybit hack in February last year, which the FBI blamed on North Korea. Asked at the White House, President Trump said U.S. officials are "looking at that."
What experts say
Analyst Garrick Hileman said some unrecovered assets are already being moved to hide their trail. Kok Tin Gan, CEO of NyxLab, questioned why stronger approval controls were not in place. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao noted that, while this may be the largest hack in dollar terms, earlier attacks such as Mt. Gox affected more bitcoin. Another expert warned a hack of this scale is "a matter of when, not if."
Sources: PBS NewsHour, Associated Press