US officials formally blamed the cyber attack on Pyongyang on Saturday. The FBI said that a hacking group known as TraderTraitor, which analysts have tied to the North Korean regime, was behind the attack.
While most of the country’s citizens have no access to the internet, North Korea operates a rigorous state hacking programme, hand-picking prize-winning maths students for its cyber army.
The hermit kingdom’s elite hackers have stolen an estimated $12.8bn in cryptocurrency over the last decade, with analysts at TRM Labs saying $7.4bn of that total has come in 2026 alone. North Korean hackers have been blamed for around 85pc of all cryptocurrency theft so far in 2026.
