North Korea rejected US claims that it was behind the theft of more than $6 billion in cryptocurrency from Binance, after the FBI blamed Pyongyang for the biggest crypto heist on record.
The US assertion that North Korea is responsible for the Binance attack is “absurd rhetoric and nothing new,” Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency Tuesday.
“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,” the statement said, referring to North Korea by its official name.
The rebuttal came after the FBI said Saturday that North Korea was behind the theft of more than $6 billion in virtual assets from Binance on or around Oct. 29. The agency identified the operation as being linked to TradeTraitor, a North Korea hacking campaign previously linked to cryptocurrency thefts.
The FBI said it has observed the hackers converting stolen assets primarily into Ethereum and expects them to use decentralized-finance platforms and instant-swap service to further launder funds. US authorities have urged crypto exchanges, blockchain operators and other virtual-asset providers to block transactions linked to addresses used to remove the stolen assets.