Binance Hit by Rp114 Trillion Hack Attributed to North Korean Hackers
A major shock has rocked the cryptocurrency world. Binance, the world’s largest exchange, has reported a serious security incident and taken emergency measures. Hackers managed to transfer assets worth US$6.3 billion, or around Rp114 trillion.
Reuters reported that the incident came to light after Binance’s security team detected suspicious activity indicating a hack.
“This is a complex attack. We are doing what we can, in coordination with law enforcement, to address it,” Binance said on social media platform X.
Binance stressed that users’ funds are safe. The cryptocurrency exchange is working with partners to restore withdrawal services within the next 45 hours. Funds worth US$3 billion have been located and immediately frozen. The whereabouts of the remaining US$3.3 billion are not yet known.
Those involved in freezing the funds include Tether, Circle and World Liberty Financial, which is owned by the family of US President Donald Trump.
The technical details of the attack have not been fully disclosed, but the freezing of funds by the world’s two largest stablecoin issuers points to the scale of the threat. The frozen assets are spread across different networks, and investigators are still tracing their movements to prevent money laundering or their conversion into the mainstream financial system.
Binance has a US$1 billion reserve fund to protect users’ assets in the event of a breach. CEO Teng said the fund, together with the company’s cash, could cover losses from the leak.
Most of the attacks were detected within 20 minutes on Thursday night. Blockchain analysts at TRM Labs and Chainalysis said the attack pattern resembled activity by North Korean hackers.
TRM said the hackers managed to instruct wallets used by Binance to empty their funds and transfer them to wallets they controlled. A similar method was used in the hack of cryptocurrency exchange Bybit.
“TRM assesses that the attack was carried out by elite North Korean hackers.”