Potentially the largest cryptocurrency theft in history – hackers breach world's biggest crypto exchange Binance - Baltic News Network
Hackers have targeted Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, in an attack that could result in losses of up to $6.3 billion.
Analysts believe the incident could become the largest cryptocurrency theft in history. Binance representatives stressed that the company is making efforts to freeze the stolen funds. So far, it has managed to trace approximately $3 billion.
Breach details
Binance co-founder Yi He said the security breach may have been linked to the hacking of a software development and support engineer's laptop. The breach allowed the attacker to gain access to a service container and initiate unauthorised withdrawal transactions.
North Korean connection
US-based blockchain intelligence company TRM said the North Korean hacking group TraderTraitor was most likely responsible for the theft. "We make this assessment with high confidence," TRM stated.
The company explained that the attacker transferred approximately $6.36 billion from Binance wallets across ten blockchains, most of it within around 20 minutes. Several characteristics of this attack match previous thefts linked to North Korea, including the Bybit hack that suffered losses of $1.5 billion in February last year.
North Korean cyber operations
Experts explain that North Korea has increasingly targeted cryptocurrency exchanges to obtain funds to support its struggling economy and finance its nuclear programme. In December 2022, South Korea's intelligence agency announced that North Korean hackers had stolen approximately 1.5 trillion won (around one billion euros) in cryptocurrencies over the previous five years, with more than half stolen in 2022 alone.
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