How did the Binance hack happen, and is North Korea behind it, according to the BBC?

BBC Tokyo correspondent Kurumi Mori reported that the Binance breach appears to have started with a hacked laptop belonging to one of its engineers, giving attackers access to company systems. Cybersecurity analysts attributed it with high confidence to TraderTraitor, an elite hacking group linked to North Korea. The hack touched more than $6 billion, possibly the largest crypto theft in history.

Binance says it has located about $3 billion of the missing assets and will cover all losses.
Tether and Circle issuers froze assets linked to the incident.
Bitcoin fell about 3% to 5%, against drops of 20% to 30% after early exchange hacks.
North Korean hackers reportedly stole at least $2.02 billion in cryptocurrency in 2025.

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on Global News Podcast (2026-10-30). Read the whole episode summary →

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