North Korean hackers blamed for record $6.3B Binance crypto theft
Original title: North Korean hackers blamed for stealing record $6.3B in Binance breach
Binance says a compromised engineer laptop enabled unauthorized withdrawals and has halted deposits and withdrawals.
Security researchers at TRM Labs and Elliptic attribute a Binance wallet theft of at least $6.3 billion to North Korean hackers, including the TraderTraitor cell. Binance said attackers used a compromised engineer’s laptop to reach a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawals, and it has seen no evidence of a private-key leak. About half of the crypto was reportedly frozen in transit. The exchange has suspended deposits and withdrawals; it says user funds are safe but has not shown proof, and the total may change.
Unconfirmed: North Korean attribution and the $6.3 billion figure come from researchers; Binance has not confirmed the incident is resolved or proved that user funds are safe.
- TRM Labs said the theft took about 20 minutes.
- Researchers say roughly half of the stolen crypto was frozen.
- Binance reported no evidence that private keys leaked.
- Elliptic tied some funds to a wallet used in a Bitget theft.
- TraderTraitor was also blamed for the 2025 Bybit theft of $1.4 billion.
Impact: Theft of at least $6.3 billion in cryptocurrency
- Threat actors
- TraderTraitor
- Victims
- Binance
- Countries
- North Korea
From the original article
3 min read at techcrunch.com
Hackers working for North Korea are suspected of hacking a Binance employee's laptop, which allowed the theft of billions in crypto.
By Zack Whittaker · techcrunch.com
A short excerpt; the article and its images belong to the publisher. Summary, key facts and assessment above are AI-written from the article and can be wrong.