Technology2 min
Binance $6.3 billion hack: Trump says US probing North Korea link
The largest crypto heist on record has put everyday users on edge, as Washington investigates and Binance races to freeze stolen funds.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that Washington is investigating whether North Korean hackers were behind a huge cyberattack on Binance, the world's biggest crypto exchange by daily trading volume. "We're looking at that," he told reporters in the Oval Office. "It was a hack."
Binance says the attack hit roughly $6.3 billion in funds. If that figure holds, it is believed to be the largest crypto theft ever recorded, and about four times the size of the Bybit heist, which was the previous record.
Who is suspected? Blockchain investigators at TRM Labs say they have "high confidence" that TraderTraitor, a North Korea-linked hacking group, carried out the attack. The same group has been blamed for the $1.5 billion Bybit theft in February last year. Another analytics firm, Elliptic, also pointed to North Korean hackers, according to CoinDesk.
The story behind the breach has grown more complicated. Binance first indicated that a single compromised laptop was involved. It now says its investigation has "uncovered additional points of breach." In a post on X, the company called it a "complex attack" and said it is working with law enforcement.
There is one piece of reassuring news. Binance says about $3 billion worth of affected assets has been frozen, which means roughly half of the estimated impact has been locked down. But the company warned that the total loss could still rise as teams work with law enforcement, token issuers and blockchain intelligence firms to trace and freeze more assets.
Why does this matter to ordinary people? Millions of users keep savings, trading balances and payments on large exchanges, trusting them to guard the keys. A breach of this scale shows that even the biggest platforms can be exposed, and it adds pressure on the industry to tighten security and be more open about incidents.
Read the original report: Trump says US 'looking at' possible North Korean role in $6.3 billion Binance crypto heist.
FiledArtificial IntelligenceUnited KingdomCryptocurrencyUnited StatesCybersecurityDonald Trump
