North Korea has rejected U.S. accusations that it was responsible for a cyberattack on cryptocurrency exchange Binance that resulted in the theft of more than $6 billion in digital assets, with Kim Jong Un’s sister calling the allegations a political provocation.
Kim Yo Jong, a senior official in North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, issued a statement on Monday denying the country’s involvement after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) publicly attributed the attack to North Korean hackers.
The FBI said North Korea was responsible for stealing more than $6 billion in virtual assets from Binance on or around Sunday. The agency referred to the operation as “TraderTraitor” and said the hackers had been converting the stolen cryptocurrency primarily into Ethereum (ETH) as part of efforts to move and launder the funds.
In her statement, Kim dismissed Washington’s claims as “preposterous nonsense,” accusing the United States of repeatedly linking North Korea to cyberattacks around the world without evidence. She also pointed to last year’s Bybit cryptocurrency exchange hack, for which U.S. authorities also blamed North Korea.
Kim accused Washington of attempting to damage her country’s international reputation and interfere in its internal affairs by associating it with cybercrime. She also questioned who would ultimately benefit from the recovery of the stolen cryptocurrency, pointing to the Trump administration’s previous announcement that it intended to establish a national strategic reserve using seized cryptocurrency assets.
The FBI has urged cryptocurrency companies, blockchain services and other industry participants to block transactions connected to addresses allegedly being used by the hackers.
Meanwhile, Binance has said it has replenished the affected assets using company funds and will absorb the financial losses rather than pass them on to customers. In its latest recovery update on Monday, the exchange said it had covered approximately 95% of the impacted amount, with the remaining 5% involving less liquid tokens that are taking longer to acquire.
Binance also said assets covered by its latest proof-of-reserves snapshot were fully backed, while withdrawals were being restored gradually following the incident.