The FBI on Saturday said the North Korean hacking group “TraderTraitor” was responsible for the theft of $6.3 billion from Binance on Thursday, describing it as the largest cryptocurrency heist on record.
The agency linked the group to last year’s $1.5 billion hack of Bybit and urged cryptocurrency exchanges and blockchain analytics firms to block associated wallet addresses to prevent the stolen funds from being laundered, reports AP.
Investigators said the hackers have been converting the assets into ethereum and are expected to use decentralised finance (DeFi) platforms and instant swap services to move the funds.
However, US President Donald Trump suggested during a Halloween event in Florida that investigators had yet to definitively establish North Korea’s involvement.
Ari Redbord, chief policy officer at TRM Labs, described the theft as “a bank robbery at the speed of the Internet” and a “cat-and-mouse game.” He warned that the perpetrators are likely to divide the stolen assets into smaller amounts and launder them over several months through lesser-known exchanges, though real-time tracking efforts could help disrupt the process and recover some of the funds.
Binance said customers would be fully reimbursed, adding that its reserves are sufficient to cover 90 per cent of the stolen assets.
