Ecosystem Roundup: North Korea’s US$6.4B Binance heist took 54 minutes and isn’t over
North Korea’s TraderTraitor group drained about US$6.4 billion from Binance in the early hours of 30 October, Singapore time, according to a Chainalysis reconstruction that puts the loss slightly above the exchange’s own US$6.3 billion estimate. No cryptography was broken. A compromised engineer’s laptop let the attacker obtain valid signed authorisations from a Binance hot […] The post Ecosystem…
North Korea's TraderTraitor group conducted a massive heist from Binance, stealing approximately US$6.4 billion in just 54 minutes on October 30th. The attack was orchestrated by a compromised engineer's laptop, which allowed the hacker to obtain valid signed authorizations from Binance's hot wallet. Despite the exchange's systems complying with the attacker's demands, the stolen funds were gradually frozen, preventing the hacker from converting all of the stolen stablecoins into ETH.
Tether and Circle accounted for around US$2.4 billion of the US$3 billion Binance estimated to be frozen. Unfreezable assets continue to move through thousands of Tron transactions, a pattern previously unseen. Binance resumed withdrawals in phases on November 1st, stating it had covered 95% of the stolen assets and recorded a net outflow of US$3.6 billion within the first nine hours.
The incident highlights the reliance of Southeast Asia on stablecoins, which are becoming crucial infrastructure in the region. Southeast Asia relied on issuers based outside the region to help rescue the stolen funds.
Written by urgent.news from e27's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
