THORChain's RUNE jumps 10% as North Korean hackers resume laundering Binance loot

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has attributed a $6.3 billion theft from Binance to North Korean hackers known as TraderTraitor. The attack, which occurred over approximately four hours on October 29, involved hackers targeting employees through fake job interviews and malicious software downloads. According to The Business Times - Companies & Markets, the attackers spent months preparing for the heist, eventually using an internal AI tool to access wallet systems after a software engineer downloaded a malicious "assignment."

Binance stated it has replenished 98% of the affected tokens and has frozen approximately $2.85 billion of the stolen assets.

Hackers are reportedly using the THORChain protocol to launder the stolen proceeds. Cointelegraph reports that the attackers have moved roughly 81% of the stolen Solana (SOL) and are using the cross-chain swap protocol to convert assets, including swapping Ether for Bitcoin. CoinDesk noted that TraderTraitor has been routing proceeds through THORChain after an earlier wave of conversions from Tron.

While the FBI has urged crypto service providers to block transactions linked to the stolen assets, Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, has dismissed the accusations as "absurd rhetoric."

Brief written by urgent.news from CoinDesk, Cointelegraph, Silicon Republic, The Hindu - Sci-Tech, The Business Times - Companies & Markets — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.