Crypto giant Binance has reported that attackers siphoned off digital assets worth $6.3bn – in what may be the biggest hack in history, the BBC reports.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange said it had managed to freeze around half of the assets, but a significant portion remains in the attackers’ hands. The company added that it would “cover all losses”.
According to preliminary information, the incident may have occurred after one of the engineers’ laptops was compromised, allowing the attacker to carry out an unauthorised withdrawal of funds.
Two analytics firms linked the incident – whose scale exceeds the record-breaking hack of the Bybit exchange in 2025 (when $1.5bn was stolen) – to a North Korean hacking group called “TraderTraitor”.
TRM Labs, which conducts investigations using artificial intelligence, said in its report that some details of the attack on Binance resemble previous incidents linked to North Korea, including the hack of the Bybit exchange. Ari Redbord, TRM Labs’ head of global policy, said the Binance hack was a “turning point” unlike anything the industry has seen before.
The attacker still holds a vast amount of the stolen assets, which means the process of tracing and recovering the funds will continue for a long time, Redbord added.
Chainalysis, which also provides analytics in the cryptocurrency sector, confirmed that it links the hack to the North Korean group with a “high degree of confidence”.
Eric Jardine, head of research at Chainalysis, urged all exchanges to remain vigilant, as platforms holding large volumes of assets are attractive targets for hackers.
Binance did not directly answer the BBC’s question about a possible link between the incident and North Korea, but said: “We are working closely with law enforcement to identify the criminals and bring them to justice”.
The incident concerns the Binance.com platform. Meanwhile, the smaller cryptocurrency platform Binance.US, which provides trading services exclusively to US residents, said it was not affected.