The Federal Bureau of Investigation has accused North Korea of a scheme dubbed the ‘biggest hack in history’ after $6.3billion was stolen from the cryptocurrency giant Binance, sending executives into an overnight panic.
An investigation led by the FBI, the United States Secret Service and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation has uncovered malicious North Korean cyber activity called ‘TraderTraitor.’
TraderTraitor actors stole assets and attempted to launder the funds on or around October 29, according to the FBI.
Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by daily trading volumes, said on Thursday that investigations had ‘uncovered additional points of breach,’ contrary to initial findings that suggested the hack involved a single compromised laptop.
The company later said the estimated total impact was ‘around $6.3 billion,’ making the hack one of the most significant security incidents on record.
The historic hack sent executives at Binance into a whirlwind. Insiders recalled the surreal breakdown of what happened in the wake of the attack to the New York Times, with one executive telling the publication he got the news in the middle of a video call with a former senior US official.
The figure is four times the amount of the biggest-ever cyber-attack of its kind to date: $1.5billion taken in February last year from the Bybit platform. The 2025 Bybit heist was also attributed to TraderTraitor.
TraderTraitor is believed to be part of Lazarus Group, which gained notoriety in 2014 when it was accused of hacking into Sony Pictures as revenge for The Interview, a film that mocked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The company previously said that an initial investigation suggested the hack involved a compromised laptop belonging to a ‘DevOps engineer,’ allowing the unauthorized party to access a ‘service container’ and execute unauthorized withdrawal transactions.
The company said late Thursday the estimated total impact was at more than $6 billion
Binance co-founders Changpeng Zhao and Yi He, who started the company in July 2017
However, further investigation later uncovered ‘additional points of breach.’ For several hours before Binance confirmed the attack, industry observers said hackers had reached the platform.
Binance’s co-CEO Richard Teng said in a video message on Friday that the company was ‘working nonstop’ and was ‘committed to covering all hack losses,’ assuring traders that their ‘assets were safe.’
‘This was a complex attack,’ Teng said. He explained that the attacker used a self-destruct mechanism that made it difficult to trace.
Teng continued that the company would conduct a full security review in the wake of the attack.
The attack on Binance comes as many observers express worries that the ever-expanding capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) models could compromise cryptography and IT security protocols.
Binance was founded in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao, who in 2023 pleaded guilty to a felony related to his failure to prevent money laundering on the platform and stepped down as CEO. President Donald Trump pardoned him in 2025.
Mr Zhao was released from prison in 2024 after being sentenced for violating the Bank Secrecy Act.
He was the first person ever sentenced to prison time for violations of that law, which requires US financial institutions to know who their customers are, to monitor transactions and to file reports of suspicious activity.
Prosecutors said no one had ever violated the regulations to the extent Zhao did. Mr Zhao and Binance have been key supporters of some of the Trump family´s crypto enterprises.
The Daily Mail has reached out to the White House for comment.
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