Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader , has rejected the US allegations that cyber criminals linked to Pyongyang were behind the massive heist of crypto exchange Binance. According to state news agency KCNA, Kim Yo Jong said the US allegations proved Washington remained hostile towards the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Pyongyang has not responded to US President Donald Trump’s overtures, made earlier this year, to resume summit diplomacy. In the wake of the US allegations, said North Korea had “issues to reconsider” over what she called US hostility.
“The FBI is trying to brand the DPRK as a ‘cyber criminal state,’ claiming that it obtained information that a hacking organization ‘supported’ by the DPRK was involved in the incident,” KCNA quoted Kim Yo Jong as saying.
“But the US assertion is absurd rhetoric and nothing new,” said Kim, a ruling party official.
“It is a grave political provocation against the DPRK that the US misleads international public opinion as if all the cyber crimes in different parts of the world are our deeds.”
The FBI said on Saturday that North Korea was responsible for the theft of more than $6 billion in virtual assets from Binance. Malicious actors from North Korea were observed laundering the stolen assets by converting them into Ethereum, said the FBI, adding that it expects “further laundering stages” for the stolen digital assets.
According to an initial assessment by gained access to the crypto exchange’s systems through an engineer who was contacted on a job-hunting platform by a person posing as a “project director”.
After the initial HR round, the Binance engineer, who was using his work laptop, had his second interview with the supposed CEO of the company. During the interview, the Binance employee was asked to download “an assignment” as part of the job recruitment process. Investigators believe that the “assignment” contained malicious code that allowed hackers to build out the attack that led to the theft of over $6 billion worth of crypto currencies.
This is not the first time North Korea has come under the scanner for high-profile cryptocurrency thefts, which analysts say is a key source of funds for its weapons programmes.
According to estimates by blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, North Korea has stolen cryptocurrency worth $7.6 billion this year alone.
Analytics firm Chainalysis estimated 89% of crypto hack losses in 2026 were linked to North Korea, up from 15% in 2021. It said the average reported loss per hack rose from $50.65 million in 2021 to $185.65 million in 2026.
