North Korea on Tuesday denied any involvement in the recent cyberattack on cryptocurrency exchange Binance and dismissed a US assessment linking the theft to its hackers as “a trite provocation.”
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency platform, said Friday that hackers had stolen more than $6 billion in what appears to be the largest crypto heist on record. The FBI later attributed the attack to a North Korean group known as TraderTraitor, which was also blamed for a $1.5 billion theft from the Bybit exchange last year.
Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, issued a statement rejecting the accusation.
“This is not the first time that the U.S. 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, using the official abbreviation for North Korea.
“On this occasion, we confirmed Washington’s hostile attitude toward the DPRK once again and are closely monitoring a variety of persistent provocations of the U.S. against our state,” Kim Yo Jong added.
Outside experts say North Korea has increasingly relied on cryptocurrency theft and other illicit cyber activities to generate foreign currency amid international sanctions. South Korea’s spy agency estimated in late 2022 that North Korean hackers had stolen about $1.1 billion in virtual assets over the previous five years.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Monday that North Korea’s cyber activities pose a growing threat to the global digital economy and that Seoul is cooperating with the United States and other partners to counter them.
US President Donald Trump, asked about the case at a Halloween event, said investigators were still examining the matter. “I’m not concerned. We’re learning about it,” Trump said. “We don’t know if it’s North Korea.”
