North Korea denies $6bn Binance hack as Kim Yo Jong calls FBI claim 'a trite provocation'

North Korea has denied involvement in the theft of more than $6 billion from Binance, the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange, after the FBI attributed the heist to a North Korean hacking group. Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of leader Kim Jong Un, called the FBI's announcement "a trite provocation" and "an absurd rhetoric" on Tuesday, according to a statement carried by state media.

Binance said on Friday that hackers had stolen more than $6 billion, in what appears to be the largest cryptocurrency heist on record. The FBI later said the theft was orchestrated by North Korean hackers, attributing the attack to a group known as TraderTraitor, which it also linked to a $1.5 billion hack of the Bybit exchange last year. Kim Yo Jong said Washington was "blindly linking the DPRK with the 'cyber crime' incidents whenever they occur on an international scale," using North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Outside experts say North Korea has increasingly turned to cryptocurrency theft and other illicit cyber activities as a source of badly needed foreign currency, helping sustain its struggling economy and fund its nuclear programme in the face of stringent US-led international sanctions. In December 2022, South Korea's spy agency estimated that North Korean hackers had stolen 1.5 trillion won ($1.1 billion) in cryptocurrency and other virtual assets over the previous five years. North Korea has been linked to numerous major cyberattacks in past years, including a 2013 campaign that paralysed the servers of South Korean financial institutions, the 2014 hacking of Sony Pictures, and the WannaCry malware attack of 2017.

South Korea's Foreign Ministry said on Monday that North Korea's illicit cyber activities pose an increasing threat to the global digital economy and that Seoul was closely cooperating with the United States and the broader international community to address the threat. The Binance heist came as North Korea has ramped up its weapons tests in a likely bid to increase its leverage in potential diplomacy with the US after President Donald Trump expressed his desire to restore diplomacy with Kim Jong Un. Asked by reporters later during a Halloween party at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Trump suggested investigators weren't yet certain that North Korea was involved. "I'm not concerned. We're learning about it," Trump said of the case. "We don't know if it's North Korea," he added, though saying investigators could still determine that it was.

In her Tuesday statement, Kim Yo Jong said: "We have issues to reconsider in diverse aspects as regards the very unpleasant U.S. hostile attitude."

What it means for Pakistan: The heist underscores the scale of the cyber threat facing crypto exchanges and their users, a concern for Pakistani investors who trade on global platforms and for the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA) as it builds a licensing regime for virtual asset service providers. Pakistan's exposure to North Korean-linked theft is indirect, but the case reinforces the need for robust anti-money laundering and know-your-customer controls as the country seeks to exit the FATF grey list and attract legitimate digital-asset investment.