Binance says $6.3 billion hit in crypto hack

Binance estimates that assets worth $6.3 billion were affected by a hacking attack on the cryptocurrency trading platform.

The exchange said on X that its investigation was pointing to a compromised laptop used by one of its engineers and other breach points. Binance says about $3 billion of the affected crypto assets has been frozen with help from issuers and infrastructure partners, but frozen assets have not necessarily been recovered.

Analyst firms TRM Labs, Chainalysis and Elliptic pointed to hackers linked to North Korea, including the group known as TraderTraitor or the Lazarus Group. There has been no official confirmation of responsibility.

Binance says it will cover losses resulting from the hack. Stephane Ifrah, an analyst at Coinhouse, said attackers could use crypto mixers or tumblers to make stolen assets harder to trace.