Lead Analysts: Emily Hanlon, James Dyer

On October 29, 2026, cryptocurrency giant Binance lost approximately $6.34 billion in digital assets in under half an hour. The attack, attributed to the notorious Lazarus Group, stands as the largest crypto heist in history.

But how was an attack of this scale pulled off?

The entire compromise appeared to originate at the human and endpoint layer: a compromised engineer’s machine. Even in high-tech, cryptographically secured ecosystems, targeting humans and their admin permission remains the easiest way into an organisation.

Attacks of this magnitude trigger immediate fallout. In the days following the attack through November 2, KnowBe4 Threat Labs tracked a 128.9% surge in crypto currency…