New York – The theft of billions of dollars from Binance in a matter of minutes, the largest cryptocurrency theft in history, was orchestrated by North Korean hackers, the FBI said on Saturday. The office said in a statement that this week’s attack was linked to “malicious cyber activity” by an entity known as TraderTraitor, the same actors behind a $1.5 billion Bybit hack last year. washed to conceal its origins. It also said its investigation found that TraderTraitor was converting stolen assets primarily into a cryptocurrency called ethereum. The FBI expects TraderTraitor will now attempt to convert the assets using DeFi and “instant exchange services.” However, when asked by reporters when he appeared Saturday night during a Halloween party at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, President Donald Trump suggested that investigators were still not sure North Korea was involved. “I’m not worried. We’re learning about it,” Trump said of the case. “We don’t know if it’s North Korea.” Although he added that it can still be determined that this is the case. Crypto expert Ari Redbord said he expects hackers to break stolen assets into pieces and try to launder them through smaller exchanges to evade detection, a process that could unfold for months. “It’s a bank robbery, in this case, at the speed of the Internet,” said Redbord, policy director at blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs. “However, we can also track and trace those funds in real time to develop investigations, disrupt and recover funds.” He added: “It’s just this game of cat and mouse.” On Thursday, $6.3 billion worth of bitcoin and other digital currencies were stolen from Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, in what several cryptocurrency experts said had the hallmarks of a North Korean hack. The company said Saturday that it had enough reserve in the same digital currency that was stolen to cover 90% of the missing assets and promised that customers would receive a full refund. ___Associated Press writer Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed.
