Pyongyang rejects FBI accusations in $6.3B Binance breach, suggests US involvement
North Korea has dismissed the FBI's claims linking it to the massive Binance cyberattack, with Kim Yo Jong labeling the accusations as politically driven.
Kim Yo Jong, sister to North Korea's supreme leader Kim Jong Un, has categorically rejected allegations that her nation played any role in the $6.3 billion Binance cyberattack and hinted, though providing no supporting evidence, that the United States may have orchestrated the massive cryptocurrency theft.
Through a statement disseminated by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) this Tuesday, Kim dismissed the Federal Bureau of Investigation's claims attributing the cyberattack to a hacking collective backed by North Korea.
The FBI is trying to brand the DPRK as a 'cyber criminal state', claiming that it obtained information that a hacking organization 'supported' by the DPRK was involved in the incident. But the US assertion is an absurd rhetoric and nothing new.
Kim characterized the accusations as a politically motivated provocation designed to undermine North Korea's reputation on the global stage. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has additionally attributed responsibility to North Korea for the $1.5 billion Bybit cyberattack that occurred in February 2025, charges that Kim similarly dismissed in her public statement.
This is not the first time that the U.S. has attempted to spread misunderstanding of the DPRK in the international community, blindly linking the DPRK with the 'cyber crime' incidents whenever they occur on an international scale.
Kim casts suspicion on US over Binance hack
If it carefully examines who will get the large amount of the so-called stolen cryptocurrency when the latter is retrieved, it may get a clue about who is behind the hacking incident.
Her statement offered no substantiating evidence that would link Washington to the cyberattack.
Kim asserted that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea stands in opposition to malicious cyber activities and leveled accusations at the United States for weaponizing cybersecurity concerns to meddle in the internal matters of sovereign nations.
Investigators cite links to earlier North Korean hacks
In the previous week, blockchain analysis company TRM Labs along with additional onchain security researchers connected the Binance cyberattack to TraderTraitor, a hacking organization associated with North Korea, drawing on evidence from both blockchain transaction patterns and intelligence sources beyond the blockchain.
TRM discovered parallels to previous cryptocurrency thefts connected to North Korea, including modest withdrawals from the cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash used to finance attacker wallets, extensive preparation conducted well in advance of the actual theft, and transaction signatures that were secured ahead of time before being executed simultaneously in one coordinated action. Nevertheless, the firm noted that the money laundering patterns observed after this incident diverged from those witnessed following the Bybit breach.
The $352 million Bitget cryptocurrency breach has similarly been connected to a North Korean-affiliated hacking organization, with Bitget's Chief Executive Officer Gracy Chen referencing initial investigative results that traced IP addresses back to virtual private network services known to be utilized "by a certain DPRK group."