North Korea suspected of stealing 89% of global crypto hacks this year

North Korea is estimated to have stolen about 89 percent of the total value lost to virtual asset hacks worldwide this year, according to a new analysis.

Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis named North Korea as the suspected actor behind an 8 trillion won ($5.99 billion) hack at Binance, the world's largest virtual asset exchange, and made the broader estimate Friday (local time), Yonhap reported.

North Korea's estimated share of total global virtual asset hack losses jumped sixfold — from 15 percent in 2021 to 89 percent this year.

The average loss per North Korea-linked hack also jumped, from $50.65 million (67.6 billion won) in 2021 to $185.65 million (248 billion won) this year.

Chainalysis also suspects North Korea of being behind a separate theft of $6.4 billion worth of virtual assets from Binance, which took place Thursday — an incident the firm described as the largest virtual asset heist in history.

The firm said the North Korea-linked cybercrime group TraderTraitor is believed to be behind the attack.

TraderTraitor has targeted virtual asset exchanges including Bitget, decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and individual investors to raise funds for the North Korean regime.

Chainalysis said it found on-chain evidence that funds stolen from Binance had been mixed with assets taken from Bitget last month, and cited that as the basis for attributing the attack to North Korea.

North Korea appears to have made hacking a primary source of foreign currency earnings.

A UN Security Council panel of experts report reviewed by The Guardian found that North Korea was linked to 58 attacks on cryptocurrency firms between 2017 and 2023, with total losses estimated at $3 billion, Yonhap reported.

The expert panel estimated that funds stolen through hacking account for about half of North Korea's foreign currency income.

Analysts have also estimated that roughly 40 percent of North Korea's weapons development costs are covered by stolen funds.

North Korea is also believed to have established a systematic pipeline for training cyber warfare specialists — identifying students who show aptitude in mathematics and science from an early age, putting them through three to five years of cyber warfare training, and enrolling top performers in university specialist programs.

Some elite operatives are also believed to receive additional training in China and Russia.