TRM attributes Binance crypto theft to North Korean hacking unit
Crime · First reported 30 Oct, 03:36 · Updated 03:42
TRM Labs says North Korea’s TraderTraitor unit carried out the Binance theft, estimating that about $6.36 billion moved from wallets across ten blockchains. Binance has described a possible engineer-laptop compromise and says it will publish a technical post-mortem after its investigation.
- TRM Labs attributed the theft to TraderTraitor, a North Korean hacking unit, and said about $6.36 billion moved from Binance wallets on ten blockchains, mostly within 20 minutes.
- Binance said its initial investigation pointed to a possibly compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop, reported no evidence of a wallet private-key leak, and promised a technical post-mortem when its review is complete.
- TRM said about $2.7 billion in crypto was frozen and estimated the attacker retained roughly $2.4 billion in assets beyond issuers’ reach.
Summary written by Lux AI from 2 articles
Key facts
- Estimated amount moved
- Approximately $6.36 billion across ten blockchains, according to TRM.
- TRM’s attribution
- TraderTraitor, described by TRM as a North Korean hacking unit.
- Estimated amount frozen
- Roughly $2.7 billion, according to TRM.
- Binance’s stated next step
- Publish a detailed technical post-mortem after its investigation is complete and facts are verified.
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Background
- An earlier Lux story reported that Binance was tracing the hack to a compromised engineer’s laptop. [8d64e088-5b2e-4ecb-a848-b2ee63dbf795]
- Earlier Lux coverage reported that Binance was investigating a security issue while firms froze related crypto; the story said the extent of any loss remained unclear. [130281f4-035d-4c7f-8d54-ffcc05b0e88b]
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