{"id":671638,"date":"2026-11-01T09:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T09:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/671638\/"},"modified":"2026-11-01T09:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T09:58:10","slug":"fbi-says-north-korea-behind-6bn-crypto-theft-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/671638\/","title":{"rendered":"FBI says North Korea behind $6bn crypto theft"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Binance said it had resumed withdrawals after more than $6 billion in virtual assets were stolen from the cryptocurrency exchange in a major hack the FBI said North Korea was responsible for.<\/p>\n<p>The US law enforcement agency&#8217;s statement came as Binance offered reassurances it was covering the losses from the hacking attack, saying it has used company funds to buy tokens to replenish 90% of what was stolen.<\/p>\n<p>Binance is the world&#8217;s largest crypto exchange by daily trading volumes. News of the cyberattack caused the prices of most major cryptocurrencies to fall sharply on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The FBI confirmed earlier suspicions from private investigators and analysts that a North Korea-affiliated group called TraderTraitor was behind the hack.<\/p>\n<p>TraderTraitor is the same group blamed for a $1.5bn theft from the Bybit platform in February last year.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is releasing information advising the Democratic People&#8217;s Republic of Korea (North Korea) was responsible for the theft of more than $6 billion USD in virtual assets from cryptocurrency exchange Binance, on or about October 29, 2026,&#8221; the statement said.<\/p>\n<p>The FBI added that it had observed &#8220;TraderTraitor actors&#8221; converting stolen assets into Ethereum, and expected those assets to be laundered further by converting them using decentralised finance and instant swap services.<\/p>\n<p>It said it was urging private sector entities &#8220;to block transactions with or derived from addresses TraderTraitor actors are using to launder these stolen assets&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Cover the financial impact&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Binance said it has set aside more than $6.34bn in company funds to cover losses in the hack.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our commitment remains the same: Binance will fully cover the financial impact of the funds stolen in this incident,&#8221; the company said on X.<\/p>\n<p>It said it has used company money to buy tokens to replenish 90% of the stolen funds, while the remaining 10% of tokens are &#8220;less liquid, which means they may take longer to source in the required amounts&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The attack on Binance came as many observers express worries that the ever-expanding capabilities of artificial intelligence models could compromise cryptography and IT security protocols.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/1793527090_330_001c4211-614.jpg\"\/><br \/>\nThe scale of the hack has put a spotlight on North Korea<\/p>\n<p>Bitcoin plunged nearly 5% after the news of the hack, while Ethereum dropped nearly 6% and BNB, native to Binance, tumbled nearly 10%.<\/p>\n<p>Binance said on Friday it was working to resolve what it called a &#8220;complex attack&#8221; with several &#8220;points of breach&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The sheer scale of the hack has put a spotlight on the capacity of North Korea &#8211; which faces extensive international sanctions over its nuclear and missile programmes &#8211; to find illicit means to capture revenue.<\/p>\n<p>TraderTraitor is believed to be part of the Lazarus Group, which gained notoriety in 2014 when it was accused of hacking into Sony Pictures as revenge for &#8220;The Interview&#8221;, a film that mocked North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Binance said it had resumed withdrawals after more than $6 billion in virtual assets were stolen from the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60],"class_list":["post-671638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}