North Korea denies involvement in record $6.3bn Binance hack

North Korea has rejected allegations that it was behind the record $6.3bn (£4.7bn) theft of digital assets from cryptocurrency exchange Binance, describing the claims as "absurd rhetoric". Kim Yo-jong, a senior Democratic People's Republic of Korea official and the sister of leader Kim Jong Un, said on Tuesday that the accusations were another "sinister attempt" by the United States to damage her country's public image. "The US has made a trite provocation of linking it with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea again," said Kim, who serves as director of North Korea's General Affairs Department. "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," she added. The FBI, the US Secret Service and cyber analysts have said North Korea orchestrated the breach, which has been described as the largest hack in history. Blockchain analysts and the FBI say the attack was carried out by TraderTraitor, a state-backed hacking group. The FBI has urged industry partners to help block transactions involving cryptocurrency accounts linked to the group. The incident is the latest in a series of hacks attributed to North Korea, which has been accused of relying on cyber-crime to help finance its economy. The TraderTraitor unit, also known as the Lazarus Group, was blamed for what was then a record $1.5bn theft from crypto exchange Bybit in 2025. Pyongyang has consistently denied such accusations. Research groups, including the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies think tank, have said North Korea has systematically built its cyber operations by recruiting promising university students and sending them to hacker units overseen by the country's intelligence agency. Kim Yo-jong said "it is the consistent policy stand of the DPRK government to resolutely oppose all sorts of malicious acts in cyberspace". Binance, which the BBC has contacted for comment, has focused its public statements on the technical nature of the breach 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 the platform has resumed after the exchange worked with issuers to freeze assets affected by the hack. Binance said on Sunday that customers withdrew more than $3.6bn of assets as the exchange reopened following a full suspension of transactions in the wake of the attack. 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.