Binance Says Hackers Used Bogus Job Interview and AI Tool

The crypto exchange said it has rebuilt the affected systems and tools.

Binance said a software engineer inadvertently downloaded malicious code onto his work computer to complete an assignment for a job interview, part of the several steps since June that eventually allowed attackers to gain access to its system to conduct a $6.3 billion hack. The engineer didn’t realize the job interview was for a fictitious company, however.

The hackers then used an “internal AI tool” to gain control of two other engineers’ computers, Binance said in an update on its investigation on Tuesday. One of them had downloaded a tempered Homebrew installation from a search engine to install a popular AI coding tool, Binance said, resulting in vulnerability at Binance’s wallet infrastructure team.

The FBI has said North Korea was behind the hack, while North Korea has denied it. Binance said it has replenished 98% of the stolen tokens and it’s in the process of purchasing the outstanding assets. Customer withdrawals have stabilized at the exchange, with Binance seeing $1.7 billion of net inflows in the past 24 hours, according to data from DefiLlama.