North Korea calls FBI's $6bn Binance heist claim 'absurd rhetoric'

North Korea has rejected as "absurd rhetoric" the FBI's claim that a state-sponsored hacking unit stole more than $6 billion in virtual assets from Binance, in what the bureau has described as a possible record financial heist.

Kim Yo Jong, a ruling party official and the sister of leader Kim Jong Un, said Washington was trying to brand the DPRK a "cyber criminal state", according to state news agency KCNA. "The US assertion is absurd rhetoric and nothing new," she said, calling the allegation "a grave political provocation" that misleads international opinion by pinning the world's cyber crimes on Pyongyang.

The FBI said at the weekend that members of a North Korean unit known as TraderTraitor carried out the attack on the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange. Investigators watched the group convert the stolen assets into Ethereum and expect further laundering, the bureau said. Binance has said it covered most of the stolen assets using company money.

Cybersecurity experts regard North Korean hackers as among the most prolific crypto thieves, with proceeds helping to fund the country's weapons programmes. Pyongyang denies all links to cryptocurrency theft and other cybercrimes, though UN Security Council resolutions ban the illicit activities it is accused of funding.

Kim Yo Jong's statement comes as Pyongyang has stayed publicly silent on US President Donald Trump's offers to resume summit diplomacy. She said the North had "issues to reconsider" in light of what she called a "very unpleasant US hostile attitude", without elaborating.