North Korea denies being behind record $6.3bn Binance hack

North Korea has denied claims that it was behind the record $6.3bn (£4.7bn) hack of cryptocurrency exchange Binance , calling the allegations “absurd rhetoric”. Kim Yo-jong, a top Democratic People’s Republic of Korea official and the sister of leader Kim Jong Un , said on Tuesday that the accusations are another “sinister attempt” by the US to damage Pyongyang’s public image. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Secret Service, and cyber analysts have said North Korea orchestrated the hack, described as the largest in history. This is the latest hack to be linked to North Korea, which has been accused of relying on cybercrime to help finance its sanctioned economy. Blockchain analysts and the FBI say the state-backed hacking group TraderTraitor led the attack. The FBI has called on industry partners to help block transactions involving cryptocurrency accounts linked to the group. “The US has made a trite provocation of linking it with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea again,” Kim Yo-jong, the director of North Korea’s General Affairs Department, said in a statement. “It is a grave political provocation against the DPRK that the US misleads international public opinion as if all the cybercrimes in different parts of the world are our deeds,” she said. But Pyongyang has been blamed for a number of major cyber attacks in recent years – accusations that it has denied. The TraderTraitor unit, also known as the Lazarus Group, was blamed for a then-record $1.5bn hack of the crypto exchange Bybit in 2025. Pyongyang has systematically built its cyber operations by recruiting promising university students and sending them to hacker units overseen by North Korea’s intelligence agency, research groups like the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies think tank have said. The country has consistently denied such claims. Kim Yo-jong said, “It is the consistent policy stand of the DPRK government to resolutely oppose all sorts of malicious acts in cyberspace”. The BBC has contacted Binance for comment. Since the hack, the crypto giant has largely focused its public statements on the breach’s technical nature and its response to protect users. The company said initial checks indicated that an engineer’s laptop had been compromised, enabling an attacker to make unauthorised withdrawals. Trading in major cryptocurrencies on Binance has since resumed after the exchange worked with issuers to freeze assets impacted by the hack. Binance said on Sunday that customers pulled out more than $3.6bn in assets as it reopened after suspending all transactions following the hack. The company has repeatedly said it would cover all losses linked to the attack and has so far covered around 95% of the assets stolen in the breach.