Binance heist: How a hacked laptop and 'The Interview' tie North Korea to the $6.3B crypto theft

Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, began restoring user withdrawals on Sunday after a 29 October cyberattack stole over $6 billion in digital assets, the largest crypto heist in history. The exchange had suspended all deposits and withdrawals to contain the damage. Binance has set aside more than $6.34 billion from corporate reserves and emergency funds to cover all stolen assets, with 90 percent already replenished through open-market token purchases. Roughly $3 billion of affected funds were frozen through coordination with blockchain networks and stablecoin issuers, though freezing does not instantly return the money. The FBI formally accused North Korea's TraderTraitor group, linked to the Lazarus Group, of executing the breach, which began with a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop. President Trump cast doubt on the attribution, while market panic saw Bitcoin drop nearly 5 percent and Ethereum plunge 6 percent.