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As the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, has suffered a staggering multi-billion-dollar hacking breach, analysis suggests that North Korea may be behind the attack. Investors' anxiety regarding domestic exchanges is also growing.

For our first report, Hong Yeongjae has the details.

[Reporter]

The hacking damage announced by Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, amounts to approximately $6.3 billion, which is about 8.4 trillion won.

Binance stated that initial findings indicate the attacker accessed an unauthorized withdrawal route through an engineer's laptop, adding that user funds are secure and that deposits and withdrawals will be suspended while security checks are conducted.

The company also stated that any losses will be fully covered using its insurance fund and corporate capital.

This is the largest cryptocurrency theft in history in terms of scale. Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs pointed to the North Korean hacking group TraderTrater as the mastermind behind this attack.

TraderTrater is the designation used by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) last year when referring to North Korean hacking activities that stole approximately $1.5 billion in virtual assets from Bybit.

TRM Labs raised the possibility that the transaction signing system of the hot wallet, an internet-connected wallet that processes customer withdrawals, was compromised.

As suspicions of hacking spread, coin issuers Tether and Circle froze trading of their respective coins on Binance.

Bitcoin prices plummeted by around 4%, dropping to the $78,000 range, the lowest level in a month.

In the wake of the Binance hacking suspicions, Upbit, a domestic exchange, posted a notice to its customers this morning (October 30).

The notice advised caution when making withdrawals to Binance, stating that security incidents and signs of asset theft had been confirmed at the platform.

Previously, domestic exchange Bithumb suffered a breach of its internal mobile work system, leaking resident registration numbers, account numbers, and ID copies of 844 customers. Meanwhile, coin-market exchange Probineb also saw about 100 million won worth of virtual assets drained from its online wallet, continuing a wave of hacking incidents both domestically and internationally.

(Video Editing: Won Hyeong-hee)