North Korea denies involvement in the Binance cryptocurrency heist, with Kim Yo Jong calling the FBI’s attribution a “trite provocation” on Tuesday. The influential sister of leader Kim Jong Un rejected the U.S. announcement that North Korean hackers carried out the theft.
Binance said Friday that hackers stole more than $6 billion, in what appears to be the largest cryptocurrency heist on record. The FBI later attributed the attack to North Korean hackers and a group known as TraderTraitor.
Korea Denies Involvement as Officials Dispute the FBI Claim
Kim Yo Jong also described the FBI announcement as “absurd rhetoric.” She said the United States had tried before to spread misunderstanding of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea by linking it to international cybercrime incidents. She said Pyongyang was monitoring what she called persistent U.S. provocations.
Kim Yo Jong said the United States had repeatedly linked North Korea with cybercrime incidents when they occurred internationally. She called the latest announcement “a trite provocation” and “absurd rhetoric,” and said Pyongyang was monitoring what she described as persistent U.S. provocations.
The FBI attributed the Binance attack to TraderTraitor, which the report also identifies as behind a $1.5 billion hack of the Bybit exchange last year. Binance said hackers stole more than $6 billion in the latest incident. The report describes that amount as appearing to be the largest cryptocurrency heist on record.
Outside experts say North Korea has increasingly relied on cryptocurrency theft and other illicit cyber activity as a source of foreign currency. They say those activities help sustain the country’s struggling economy and fund its nuclear program amid U.S.-led sanctions and other challenges. Those assessments are separate from the FBI’s specific attribution in the Binance case.
Earlier Cyber Activity Adds Context to the Denial
South Korea’s spy agency estimated in December 2022 that North Korean hackers had stolen 1.5 trillion won ($1.1 billion) in cryptocurrency and other virtual assets over the previous five years. North Korea has mostly denied involvement in cyberattacks, while being linked to major incidents in prior years.
The listed incidents include a 2013 campaign that paralyzed the servers of South Korean financial institutions, the 2014 hacking of Sony Pictures, and the WannaCry malware attack of 2017. The report says North Korea has mostly denied involvement, while noting that it has been linked to these major cyberattacks in past years.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Monday that North Korea’s illicit cyber activity posed an increasing threat to the global digital economy. The ministry said Seoul was cooperating closely with the United States and the broader international community to address that threat.
The Binance theft came as North Korea ramped up weapons tests, which the report described as a likely effort to gain leverage in possible diplomacy with the United States. North Korea said Tuesday that it tested a new cluster warhead for strategic cruise missiles.
U.S. President Donald Trump, asked about the case at a Halloween party at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, said investigators were still learning about it. He said, “We don’t know if it’s North Korea,” while allowing that investigators could still reach that conclusion.
Kim Yo Jong said North Korea had “issues to reconsider in diverse aspects” because of what she called the United States’ “very unpleasant” hostile attitude. Smartech Daily has also covered cyberattacks against casinos, the effects of data breaches and blockchain’s operational limitations.
