coindesk.com
Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, denied U.S. accusations on Monday that her regime is behind the $6.4 billion Binance hack, calling the FBI’s claims a political attack against her country.
Kim accused Washington of blaming North Korea whenever a major cybercrime occurs, according to her statement published Tuesday by state news KCNA.
“As regards this extra-large incident, the U.S. has made a trite provocation of linking it with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea again,” she said. “The FBI is trying to brand the DPRK as a ‘cyber criminal state,’” she added, calling the accusation “absurd rhetoric and noting new.”
Her denial comes days after the FBI attributed the Oct. 29 Binance theft to TraderTraitor, a North Korean hacking operation. The U.S. law enforcement agency identified cryptocurrency addresses associated with the stolen funds and urged exchanges and blockchain services to block transactions involving them.
Blockchain investigators have also linked the Binance hack to North Korea's Lazarus Group. Elliptic subsequently traced the movement of stolen funds through thousands of wallets, finding evidence of automated laundering but no proof that AI agents were directing the transactions.
Washington has spent years tracing cryptocurrency thefts to North Korean state-linked hackers, imposing sanctions and bringing criminal charges. The Binance attack, if the FBI’s attribution is correct, would mark a sharp escalation in the amount of cryptocurrency the group has stolen.
In 2019, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Lazarus Group, Bluenorff and Andariel, saying the three hacking groups were controlled by North Korea's military intelligence agency. Two years later, the Justice Department charged three North Korean military hackers with attempting to steal or extort more than $1.3 billion from banks and businesses, including cryptocurrency companies.
The Treasury Department also sanctioned the cryptocurrency mixer Sinbad in 2023, saying it was “a key money-laundering tool of the OFAC-designated Lazarus Group”, used by Korean hackers to launder proceeds from the $620 million Axie Infinity theft and other attacks.
Kim further challenged Washington's attribution of the $1.5 billion Bybit hack in February 2025, which the FBI linked to TraderTraitor.
“It is a grave political provocation against the DPRK that the U.S. misleads the international public opinion as if all the cybercrimes in different parts of the world are our deeds,” she said.
North Korea has repeatedly denied involvement in major cyberattacks. North Korea recruits students skilled in mathematics and computing for cyber operations, with some assigned to its military intelligence agency, according to a 2024 United Nations report and research by the Center for a New American Security.
