Binance halts withdrawals after a $6.3 billion hack that analysts link to North Korea
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, said about $6.3 billion in digital assets was affected by a security incident on Thursday and that it has suspended deposits and withdrawals, AP and the BBC reported. Blockchain analysis firms TRM and Chainalysis attributed the theft to TraderTraitor, a North Korean state-backed hacking unit. Binance has not confirmed that attribution and says it will cover all losses. The investigation is still under way.
What happened: TRM said an attacker moved about $6.36 billion out of Binance wallets on ten blockchains on October 29, most of it in about 20 minutes, BleepingComputer reported. TRM called it the largest crypto theft on record, about four times the $1.5 billion Bybit hack of February 2025.
What Binance says: Binance said its initial investigation suggests a DevOps engineer’s laptop was compromised, which gave an attacker access to a service container to submit unauthorized withdrawals. It said it found no evidence that wallet private keys leaked. The BBC reported that Binance later said its investigation had uncovered additional points of breach.
The money: Binance said about $3 billion has been frozen on-chain with help from blockchain partners. TRM said Tether, Circle, Ripple and World Liberty Financial froze about $2.67 billion in stablecoins, BleepingComputer reported. Binance said it will cover all losses from its SAFU fund and company funds and that user funds are safe.
The attribution: TRM said it made its judgment with high confidence, and Chainalysis said it also had high confidence that TraderTraitor is responsible, according to BleepingComputer. The FBI attributed the 2025 Bybit hack to the same group, DW reported. Binance said it is working with law enforcement to identify the attackers.
What we don’t know yet: Binance has not said when deposits and withdrawals will resume. It said it will publish a technical post-mortem and an updated Proof of Reserves once the work is complete.
Sources
- Binance — Security Incident Update
- AP News — Blockchain firms link North Korea to $6.3B hack on Binance
- BBC News — Crypto giant Binance hit by hack suspected to be largest in history
- BleepingComputer — Binance links $6.3 billion crypto theft to compromised DevOps laptop
- DW — Binance halts trading over hack linked to North Korea