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North Korean Hackers Used Fake Job Offer to Breach Binance Employee's Laptop
North Korean hackers used a fake job offer to breach a Binance employee's laptop, Binance says.
Key points
- A Binance wallet engineer ran a coding assignment from hackers posing as recruiters, and the malware compromised the work laptop.
- The hackers used that foothold to take over two other wallet engineers' computers, then a third engineer's machine with access to billions
- Binance suspended customer withdrawals after the attack and said it has at least 57 suspected attacks from North Korea on record.
Why it matters. The breach shows how North Korean social engineering can reach the core systems of crypto firms, and Binance said it has improved its network security after the theft.
Binance confirmed that North Korean hackers stole a record $6.3 billion in crypto last week, posing as recruiters in a months-long scheme. A software engineer on Binance's wallet team opened a malicious coding assignment after two interviews, and the company's security tools did not detect the malware. The FBI and blockchain investigators have blamed North Korea, and Binance said the attack 'should not have happened.
Latest updates
North Korean Hackers Used Fake Job Offer to Breach Binance Employee's Laptop
Binance says North Korean hackers used fake social media profiles and the lure of a job offer. The scheme ran for months and aimed to trick an employee into downloading malicious software onto a laptop. Cybersecurity researchers had warned for years about North Korea's patient social engineering tactics. TechCrunch reports that the exchange was still caught off guard by the attack. The incident is linked to a $6.3 billion crypto heist, which TechCrunch describes as a record. The report does not detail the total amount recovered.
North Korean hackers linked to crypto thefts among world's best, experts say
A US State Department spokesman said North Korean cybercrime is a “global problem” North Korean hackers likely behind the record $6.3 billion theft from cryptocurrency exchange Binance are among the world’s most prolific crypto thieves, and the proceeds help fund the country’s weapons programs, cybersecurity experts said on Friday. Crypto platform Binance freezes $3 billion worth of funds after “security issue” storyline 1 Blockchain investigation firms TRM Labs and Chainalysis attribute the heist to a North Korean hacking group known as “TraderTraitor,” a name used in a 2022 joint warning from the FBI, CISA and US Treasury that described how hackers used malicious software and other tricks to target software developers and IT staff at cryptocurrency companies. Tech firms take fresh hit as earnings misses fan AI fears Tech firms take fresh hit as earnings misses fan AI fears The announcements came a day after Google parent Alphabet reported soft growth in revenue from advertising and its search business Tech firms take fresh hit as earnings misses fan AI fears storyline 1 North Korea stole at least $6.75 billion in cryptocurrency through the end of 2025, Chainalysis said in a December 2025 report. That total includes the $1.5 billion ByBit exchange hack in February 2025. The group also hit Bitget, a separate exchange, taking $387 million in September, experts have said, .