Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has announced that it has covered 90% of the $6.3 billion (£4.7 billion) in assets stolen during a cyberattack on Thursday. The company added that securing the remaining 10% of the funds in the required amount may take more time. Binance has consistently promised to cover 100% of the losses from what is suspected to be the largest cryptocurrency hack ever recorded, stating that it has set aside more than $6.34 billion from company funds for this purpose. “Binance will absorb the financial impact of these stolen funds, not our users,” the company said in a statement on Saturday.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced on Saturday that North Korea was responsible for the attack. Two analytics firms had previously told the BBC that they had strong information pointing to the North Korean state-backed hacking unit Lazarus Group, also known as TraderTraitor – which the FBI specifically named – as the likely perpetrators. Binance said it had replenished the stolen assets using various funds and its corporate treasury. All holdings of the cryptocurrencies Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether have been covered, along with seven other widely traded crypto assets.
Binance’s initial investigation suggested that an engineer’s laptop had been compromised, allowing unauthorized access to withdrawals, but a later update said it had discovered “additional points of compromise”. Richard Teng, Binance’s co-chief executive, said the attack had been carried out by more than one person and that the hackers had used sophisticated methods to conceal their tracks, such as a “self-destruct mechanism”. The company said its next goal is to resume withdrawal services for users, adding that it was on track to reopen withdrawals on Sunday, 1 November, and would provide a further update once details were confirmed.
On Friday, the company announced that it had frozen around $3 billion in stolen assets following cooperation with law enforcement agencies, intelligence firms and partners. The US Secret Service said on Friday that it was working “around the clock” with private sector partners “to identify, freeze, trace and recover” the funds stolen from Binance. The attack is believed to be the largest in history, surpassing the record of a $1.5 billion theft at the Bybit exchange in 2025 – for which the FBI also said North Korea was responsible. North Korea has always denied involvement in these attacks.
Taken from BBC News