FBI pins $6.3B Binance crypto heist on North Korean hackers
Exchange scrambles to replace stolen funds as customers withdraw billions and hackers get busy laundering their haul
The FBI has accused North Korean hackers, specifically the Lazarus Group's TraderTraitor operation, of conducting the staggering $6.3 billion heist from cryptocurrency exchange Binance. The attack, which occurred on October 29, saw the stolen funds disappear in just 20 minutes, with the majority untraceable. Blockchain intelligence firms TRM Labs and Elliptic had previously linked the theft to North Korea, with TRM estimating the total loss at $6.36 billion and Elliptic reporting closer to $6.43 billion.
Of the stolen assets, $2.85 billion has been frozen or seized. The hackers are now swapping their ill-gotten gains for Ethereum and moving the funds through decentralized finance platforms and instant swap services to complicate tracing efforts. The FBI has published a list of cryptocurrency wallet addresses associated with the theft and is urging exchanges, blockchain analytics companies, and virtual asset providers to block transactions involving the stolen funds.
Binance attributes the breach to a compromised laptop belonging to a DevOps engineer, which granted the intruders access to a service container, enabling unauthorized withdrawals. The exchange has since resumed customer withdrawals and replenished around 95% of the stolen assets, but the remaining tokens are proving challenging to recover due to their limited liquidity.
Binance has committed significant funds from its reserves and emergency accounts to cover the losses, with co-CEO Richard Teng assuring customers that they will not bear the financial burden. Despite these efforts, users have been exiting the platform, resulting in approximately $3.64 billion in net outflows since withdrawals resumed.
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