SEOUL (The Thursday Times) — North Korea on Tuesday denied carrying out the record $6.3 billion hack of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, with Kim Yo-jong, the sister of leader Kim Jong Un, calling the accusation “absurd rhetoric”.
In a statement, Kim Yo-jong, director of the country’s General Affairs Department, called the claims a “sinister attempt” by the United States to damage North Korea’s image. “It is a grave political provocation against the DPRK that the US misleads the international public opinion as if all the cyber crimes in different parts of the world are our deeds,” she said.
The FBI has blamed North Korea for the theft, the largest on record, and blockchain analysts have also pointed to the country. The FBI says the attack was led by TraderTraitor, a state-backed group also known as Lazarus, and has asked crypto firms to block transactions linked to it. The same group was blamed for the then-record $1.5 billion theft from the exchange Bybit in 2025.
North Korea has been blamed for a number of major cyber attacks and has consistently denied them.
Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, reopened on Sunday after suspending all transactions following the breach. Customers pulled more than $3.6 billion as it came back, and the company says it has covered about 95 percent of the stolen assets.
