Reported by The Guardian
Blockchain intelligence firm TRM says North Korea’s TraderTraitor hacking unit is responsible for the largest crypto theft on record
The crypto industry is reeling from a massive hack at Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.
Digital assets worth more than $6.3bn (£4.7bn) have reportedly been taken from Binance by North Korean hackers, apparently after a laptop belonging to one of its engineers was hacked.
More from the original report
The company said its teams are “working around the clock” to resolve the issue.
“Rest assured that user funds are completely safe,” a Binance spokesperson said in a statement.
Binance said it had worked with partners to freeze the affected assets, with about $3bn located so far. It gave no update on the status of the remaining $3.3bn as Binance co-founder Yi He said the company would cover “all hacking losses”.
Elsewhere in the financial world, NatWest has rounded out the Q3 bank earnings season with a bit of a whimper.
Pre-tax profits were up just 1.9% for the July to September period, hitting £2.2bn.
That’s despite an 8.9% rise in net interest income to £3.6bn, having been offset by an 81% jump in impairment charges - the sums they use for soured loans - from £153m to £277m.
However, NatWest said that impairment charge increase is a comparative issue, reflecting the one-off release of provisions last year, rather than any change in conditions for its borrowers, which has remained stable.
They’ve also reported higher operating costs, primarily linked to the integration of wealth management business, Evelyn Partners, which the bank bought earlier this year.
The Binance theft raises ‘serious questions’ for cryptocurrency exchanges, explains Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor at security firm ESET
double quotation mark “It is worrying just how quickly billions of dollars can disappear in a modern-day cyber heist, but it is unbelievable that a single laptop has enough privileged access to enable it. If a single device can authorise enormous cryptocurrency transfers, hackers can simply target systems and people until they find a weak link. And there is always one. “While blockchain transactions can be traced, recovering stolen cryptocurrency is far…