DST News: The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has linked North Korea to the theft of $6.3bn in digital assets from cryptocurrency exchange Binance, describing it as a record-breaking heist.
In a statement on Saturday, the FBI said North Korean-linked hackers had been laundering the stolen assets, primarily by converting them into Ethereum, a major cryptocurrency.
The agency attributed the operation to a group known as TraderTraitor, which was also blamed for stealing $1.5bn from the Bybit cryptocurrency platform in February last year.
The FBI said the stolen funds were expected to undergo further laundering in several stages. It urged virtual asset service providers to block transactions associated with the operation and provided suspected digital addresses for monitoring.
In a separate statement on Saturday, Binance said it had replaced 90 percent of the stolen amount by purchasing new tokens using company funds.
The remaining 10 percent involves less liquid tokens, which could take longer to acquire, the company said.
“We will continue to buy the remaining relevant token assets… until the covered amount reaches 100 [percent] for all tokens. Binance will absorb the financial impact of these stolen funds, not our users,” the company said in a post on X.
The funds used to repurchase the tokens came from Binance’s $1bn Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), a Bitcoin reserve intended to protect customers in the event of security breaches. The company also used resources from its Futures Insurance Fund and corporate treasury.
Cryptocurrency prices fell on Friday as Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, sought to reassure customers that their funds remained safe.
Binance co-CEO Richard Teng said the breach was a “complex attack” involving a compromised laptop and malicious software designed to erase evidence of its activities, making the incident difficult to trace and investigate.
Following the hack, the exchange temporarily suspended customer withdrawals.
Binance said later on Saturday that it expected to resume withdrawals on Sunday.
The company also announced the release of a new proof-of-reserves snapshot, allowing users to independently verify that their assets were backed at a minimum one-to-one ratio.
Source: Al Jazeera
