In a revealing post-mortem report, Binance has detailed how a sophisticated social engineering campaign led to a staggering $6.3 billion cryptocurrency theft. The breach, which the FBI has attributed to North Korean hackers, began back in June when a developer unwittingly installed a compromised AI tool. Despite the company’s initial efforts to remediate the situation by wiping devices and resetting credentials, the attackers maintained a foothold, eventually targeting a second engineer through a calculated fake job interview scheme in September.

By October, the perpetrators had leveraged the compromised systems and stolen credentials to manipulate internal software, culminating in a malicious script execution on October 29. While Binance has publicly apologized for the security failure and committed to reimbursing all affected customers, the incident highlights the evolving risks of AI-driven cyber threats. In response, the exchange is now ramping up investments in advanced detection technologies and forming new security research partnerships to prevent similar breaches in the future.