FBI blames North Korea for billion dollar hack
The US Federal Police FBI blames North Korea for the billion-dollar hacker attack on the Binance cryptocurrency exchange. The FBI announced this on Saturday evening (local time). US President Donald Trump said on Friday that the US was investigating whether North Korea was behind the attack.
The world’s largest crypto exchange by daily trading volume announced the attack on Thursday. According to the company, assets worth $6.3 billion (€5.6 billion) were affected. Binance spoke of a “complex attack” with multiple gateways. Deposits and withdrawals have been temporarily suspended.
According to earlier information from Binance, the attack could have taken place via an IT employee’s laptop. The company said there is currently no evidence of the theft of private keys for crypto accounts. Even before the FBI’s statement, analysis firm TRM Labs said it was “pretty sure” that the North Korea-linked hacker group TraderTraitor was behind the attack. Several characteristics were consistent with previous North Korean cyber thefts. TraderTraitor is considered part of the Lazarus group, which is believed to be responsible for numerous hacker attacks.
