North Korea Disputes Blame for Record Binance Crypto Theft

North Korea rejected the claim that it orchestrated the largest cryptocurrency hack in history.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea called the allegations "absurd rhetoric" on Tuesday. Kim Yo-jong, a top official and sister of leader Kim Jong Un, issued the statement. She described the accusations as a "sinister attempt" by the United States to damage Pyongyang's public image.

The FBI, the Secret Service, and cyber analysts say North Korea led the attack. They identified the state-backed hacking group TraderTraitor as the culprit. The group is also known as the Lazarus Group. The FBI has asked industry partners to help block transactions tied to the group's cryptocurrency accounts.

The breach resulted in a loss of $6.3 billion, or $4.7 billion, for the exchange. Analysts described the incident as the largest in history. This event follows a similar attack in 2025. In that case, the TraderTraitor unit was blamed for a $1.5 billion hack of the exchange Bybit.

Pyongyang has faced blame for several major cyber attacks in recent years. The country has denied those accusations as well. Research groups, including the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, say North Korea builds its cyber operations by recruiting university students. They send those students to hacker units overseen by the national intelligence agency.

Binance has focused its public comments on the technical details of the breach. The company said initial checks showed an engineer's laptop was compromised. That failure allowed an attacker to make unauthorized withdrawals. Binance suspended all transactions temporarily. It then reopened trading after working with issuers to freeze the affected assets.

Customers pulled more than $3.6 billion in assets from the exchange on Sunday. That withdrawal occurred as the platform resumed operations. Binance has said it will cover all losses linked to the attack. The company reported that it has covered about 95% of the stolen assets so far.