World's Largest Exchange Breached, Over 8 Trillion Won Lost... "Backed by Elite North Korean Group"

[Anchor]

Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, has suffered an unprecedented loss of 8.4 trillion won due to an external cyber attack. Analysis indicates that a unit under North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau is behind this hacking incident, which was executed in just 20 minutes.

Here is reporter Jung Hye-jin with the details.

[Reporter]

Binance is the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange with 320 million users.

Binance suddenly suspended withdrawals, stating that there was a security issue.

Five hours after its initial notice, Binance announced that the exchange had been breached by an external hack.

It is suspected that an attacker infiltrated the system and made unauthorized cryptocurrency withdrawals after hacking the laptop of an internal employee.

The scale of the damage officially announced by Binance amounts to approximately 8.4 trillion won.

This shatters the previous record for the largest-ever loss, instantly quadrupling the previous peak.

Binance added that it has already frozen about 4 trillion won worth of assets, which is roughly half of the total losses, and vowed to "compensate for all losses."

TRM Labs, a U.S. blockchain intelligence firm that analyzes cryptocurrency transaction histories, pointed to North Korea as the mastermind behind the hack.

It stated that Trader Traitor, North Korea's elite hacking organization, stole the largest amount of cryptocurrency in history in a mere 20 minutes.

Trader Traitor is an organization under the Reconnaissance General Bureau, which oversees terrorism and cyber warfare, and was also designated as the culprit behind the hacking of 2 trillion won worth of cryptocurrency from another exchange, Bybit, last year.

Following the freezing of Binance assets by major crypto companies such as Tether and Circle, the impact has also spread domestically as South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges like Upbit, Bithumb, and Coinone issued warnings to their users.

[Hwang Seok-jin / Professor, Graduate School of Information Security, Dongguk University : Since it is highly likely that most systems are exposed to AI agent attacks, security frameworks centered solely on intrusion prevention have certain limitations.]

Meanwhile, it has been confirmed that personal information of some residents in GS Engineering & Construction apartment complexes has also been leaked domestically, showing that our entire society is becoming a target for hackers.

Reported by Seol Chi-hwan | Video by Won Hyung-hee | Graphics by Kim Han-gil
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.