The hackers who stole billions of dollars in cryptocurrency from the Binance exchange spent months working on the theft and used both social engineering and novel malware in the process, the company said Tuesday.

The heist, which both the FBI and the TRM Security firm attributed to North Korean actors, initially targeted $6.34 billion in cryptocurrency from Binance wallets. The exchange has since frozen or intercepted $2.85 billion of that sum. Binance said it has set aside funds required to cover the loss and provided this link to a Proof of Reserves page. The $6.34 billion represents the biggest sum ever targeted in a cryptocurrency theft.

Advanced persistent threat

Binance said the people behind the heist began no later than June and continued until last Thursday, when they successfully compromised an engineer's laptop and withdrew assets from several wallets. Like just about every organization that suffers a public, high-consequence hack, Binance said the threat actor was sophisticated and resourceful.

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