Binance says fake job interviews fed $6.3bn theft blamed on North Korea
The exchange says it has replaced 98 per cent of the assets taken in a four-hour attack on Oct 29, which the FBI blames on a North Korean group it calls TraderTraitor.
Binance said on Tuesday that hackers used fake job interviews and one of its own artificial intelligence tools to reach its systems in a theft of about $6.3bn in cryptocurrency, an operation the US Federal Bureau of Investigation has blamed on North Korea.
The exchange, the world's largest cryptocurrency platform according to Yonhap, published its account a week after the attack. It said the theft ran for about four hours on Oct 29 and that it has since replaced 98 per cent of the affected assets from its own funds, with the remainder held in little-traded currencies that are hard to buy quickly.
Binance put the total affected at approximately $6.34bn and said the operation may have been prepared as early as June, Yonhap reported. A fake recruiter on a job platform ran video interviews in September and sent an "assignment" repository carrying malware that endpoint security tools did not detect, the exchange said. On Oct 20, according to Binance, the attackers used an internal AI tool as a springboard to reach a container deployment token and then deployed a container to trigger the theft.
The FBI has attributed the theft to a North Korean group it calls TraderTraitor, a name previously tied to other cryptocurrency thefts. Binance said it blocked 57 suspected North Korea-linked threats this year.
Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, rejected the FBI's finding on Tuesday, calling it a "grave political provocation" against Pyongyang, Yonhap reported. Dawn reported that North Korea has denied the allegations.
A US State Department spokesperson told Yonhap that North Korean cybercrime "is a global problem that touches companies and jurisdictions around the world, including the United States", using the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The outlets differed on the size of the loss. Dawn and Reuters both described a $6.3bn attack. Yonhap's headline said more than US$6bn, and CNA's said US$6bn.
How the reports differ
Reuters and The Straits Times both put the method in their headlines, describing a fake job interview behind a $6.3 billion attack, without further detail in their published summaries. Dawn alone reported that Binance had already replenished 98 per cent of the affected assets and timed the theft at about four hours on Oct 29. Yonhap carried the highest figure, approximately $6.34bn, traced the operation to a fake recruiter in June and September and an AI tool used on Oct 20, and was the only outlet to report Kim Yo-jong's response and the State Department comment. CNA's headline gave the sum as US$6bn.
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