North Korea rejects accusations of $6.3bn Binance hack

North Korean officials denied that the regime was behind the $6.3 billion theft from cryptocurrency exchange Binance, calling the allegations a political provocation. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and cyber-security analysts said the attack was carried out by the Lazarus Group, also known as TraderTraitor, which has been linked to previous large-scale crypto heists.

Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, said the United States was spreading "absurd rhetoric" and attempting to damage the country's international image. > "This is not the first time that the US has attempted to spread misunderstanding of the DPRK in the international community, blindly linking the DPRK with the ‘cyber crime’ incidents whenever they occur on an international scale," she said, according to state media.

According to blockchain-analytics firm Elliptic, the stolen funds were moved through more than 12,000 wallets across 11 blockchains, but only a negligible amount appears to have been cashed out. TRM Labs reported that most of the withdrawals occurred within the first 20 minutes after the hackers accessed an engineer’s laptop on Binance’s network.

The incident follows previous claims that North Korean hackers were responsible for a $1.46 billion theft from the Bybit exchange earlier in the year. South Korean estimates suggest the regime may possess around 120 nuclear warheads, and the illicit cyber-crime operations are viewed as a source of foreign currency for its weapons program.