North Korea has pushed back against U.S. cybercrime accusations, calling the allegations an attempt to smear the country while blockchain investigators continue to tie major crypto thefts to DPRK-linked actors.
A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson dismissed U.S. cyber-threat claims as “absurd slander,” according to Reuters. The statement accused U.S. government bodies, media organizations and affiliated groups of spreading a distorted view of the DPRK, while also warning that Pyongyang would take measures to defend its interests in cyberspace.
The denial comes as the crypto sector faces one of its most concentrated state-linked hack waves in years. North Korea’s position is that Washington is using cyber allegations as part of a hostile political campaign. Blockchain intelligence firms, U.S. agencies and security researchers continue to point in the opposite direction, with DPRK-linked groups repeatedly appearing in major theft investigations.
TRM Labs recently found that North Korea-linked hackers accounted for 76% of all crypto hack losses in 2026 through April, driven by only two attacks. The firm placed the combined losses at $577 million, split between the Drift Protocol breach on April 1 and the KelpDAO exploit on April 18, through its 2026 DPRK crypto theft analysis.
That concentration matters because it suggests fewer but larger operations. The incidents represented only a small share of total hack count, but they dominated stolen value. A recent North Korea crypto hack loss report made the same point: the damage is increasingly coming from high-impact operations rather than constant small exploits.
The KelpDAO case has become especially important for DeFi security teams. A separate KelpDAO Lazarus attribution update tied preliminary indicators to TraderTraitor, a Lazarus-linked subgroup already associated with major crypto theft campaigns.
The U.S. Treasury has also expanded sanctions around DPRK cyber and IT-worker networks. OFAC sanctioned six individuals and two entities in March for roles in North Korean IT worker schemes that allegedly defrauded U.S. businesses and generated nearly $800 million in 2024 for North Korea’s weapons programs, according to the Treasury designation.
The FBI’s Bybit attribution remains one of the clearest official signals of how seriously Washington treats the threat. The bureau said North Korea’s TraderTraitor actors were responsible for the $1.5 billion Bybit theft and warned exchanges, bridges, RPC node operators, analytics firms and DeFi services to block transactions tied to laundering addresses through its Bybit hack alert. A previous Bybit heist breakdown showed why that incident became a turning point for exchange security and cross-chain monitoring.
North Korea’s latest denial does not change the operational reality facing crypto firms. DeFi protocols, exchanges, bridges and remote-hiring teams are now treated as part of the sanctions perimeter because attackers can target code, governance, employees, contractors and liquidity routes. The public dispute may be diplomatic, but the industry risk is practical: one successful compromise can turn a protocol exploit into a national-security case within hours.
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