SEOUL, November 01 (AJP) - U.S. federal investigators have identified North Korean hackers as the perpetrators of a massive cryptocurrency heist targeting Binance, with more than $6 billion in digital assets stolen in what has been described as the industry's largest single hacking incident.
In a cybersecurity advisory issued Saturday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation attributed the Oct. 29 attack to TraderTraitor, a North Korean hacking operation linked to previous cryptocurrency thefts.
The breach resulted in an estimated $6.3 billion in losses at Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange.
Investigators have since tracked movements of the stolen funds, finding that the hackers have been shifting much of the cryptocurrency into Ethereum, according to the FBI.
U.S. authorities expect the funds to pass through decentralized finance platforms and rapid cryptocurrency conversion services in an effort to obscure their origins and make recovery more difficult.
The FBI is working alongside the U.S. Secret Service and the Internal Revenue Service's criminal investigation unit to trace the assets and disrupt further transfers.
The agencies have released cryptocurrency wallet addresses associated with the operation, calling on exchanges, blockchain service providers and analytics companies to prevent transactions connected to the stolen funds.
Binance previously said the breach exploited a compromised engineer's laptop and weaknesses in its transaction approval system, allowing unauthorized withdrawals worth approximately $6.3 billion.
The FBI's findings mark the first official U.S. attribution of the attack to North Korea, following earlier assessments by private blockchain security researchers linking the theft to the country's hacking networks.
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