GEOFF BENNETT: Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, says it's working to recover funds after the biggest crypto heist in history.

The company halted withdrawals after hackers made off with $6 billion in assets.

Since then, Binance has said it has frozen $3 billion of those stolen assets and has said it will cover any investor losses.

But the cyber heist is raising questions once again about the security of crypto and who pulled this off.

For more on the ripple effects of this attack, we turn to Geoff white, investigative journalist and author of several books, including "The Lazarus Heist: From Hollywood to High Finance, Inside North Korea's Global Cyber War."

Thanks for being with us.

GEOFF WHITE, Investigative Journalist: Hi.

Thanks for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: So these hackers made off with $6 billion in just 20 minutes.

How were they able to do that?

And what evidence actually points to North Korea?

GEOFF WHITE: Yes, well, this is the theft of cryptocurrency.

It's digital money.

So, unlike trying to rob a bank can take out banknotes, with the click of a mouse and a few keystrokes, you can transfer these funds.

So stealing $6 billion in under 20 minutes sounds remarkable, but it really is just typing lines of code in.

It's as simple as doing a bank transfer to a friend or relative, really.

But in terms of why fingers are pointing at North Korea, there's two real reasons for that.

Firstly, North Korea has form on this.

You know, for years and years, we have seen North Korea being accused of breaking into big cryptocurrency companies and stealing big amounts of money.

I mean, last year, 2025, they were blamed for a hack on a company called Bybit that netted them something like $1.5 billion worth of crypto.

And then just over a year later, suddenly it's $6 billion.

Now, the other thing that led to people blaming North Korea for this is that so investigators have started tracing the cryptocurrency.

Currencies like Bitcoin are traceable and trackable using this thing called the blockchain, so, public ledger of movements of cryptocurrency.

And what investigators have noticed is the money from this heist moving into wallets that they claim are North Korean-controlled wallets.

GEOFF BENNETT: So when Binance says it's working to recover stolen assets, that's essentially how they're doing it?

GEOFF WHITE: Yes.

The tracing of cryptocurrency will be a large part of that.

In this heist, the hackers stole different types of crypto.

Now, some types of crypto are actually controlled by a central entity.

So, one of them's called Tether.

There's a company called Tether.

They control that currency.

So when Tether discovered and found out that this money had been stolen, they're able to freeze that currency.

And so something like $3 billion worth of it has been frozen, because it's been stolen in currencies that are controllable and trackable.

The other half of the money, though, just over $3 billion.

$3.3 billion, was in currencies like Bitcoin.

There is no central entity, no central authority that can press a button and prevent that money moving.

It is in the wind and it is moving, and moving very rapidly.

GEOFF BENNETT: So, when Binance promises to cover the losses and they say that customers' balances won't be affected, how much confidence should customers put in that assurance?

GEOFF WHITE: It is a very large amount of money, this.

I mean, they have got to cover $6 billion.

Binance seems to be saying that they have the money to do that.

And actually it's worth saying that in previous hacks we have seen like this, including that case I mentioned last year, the $1.5 billion theft from Bybit, the crypto industry sort of swings in.

The crypto industry wants people to have faith in this new type of money.

And so, when one of these hacks happens, there is an impetus on them to backfill this and to make sure that people don't lose out.

Because, otherwise, the crisis of confidence could be catastrophic.

So it's in Binance's interest and the industry's interest to do this.

And I have to say the amounts of money that sometimes appear seemingly out of nowhere to patch the whole are quite astronomical.

It remains to be seen, though.

I mean, Binance is really going to have to work hard to cover this.

GEOFF BENNETT: And we should be clear.

The hack of an exchange like Binance isn't necessarily a vulnerability in Bitcoin itself.

Still, how damaging is this for the broader industry?

GEOFF WHITE: Well, you are absolutely right.

What's been exposed here isn't some particular vulnerability, as you say, in Bitcoin or one of the other cryptocurrencies.

From what we know, employees of Binance were targeted in the same way lots of us get targeted, probably phishing messages, and were inside Binance at a level where they could actually transfer out money and move money around.

What this does show, and we have had repeated cases of this now, is that security around cryptocurrency and these cryptocurrency companies does seem to be weaker than around traditional banks.

And it has to be said the advice is, if you're in cryptocurrency and you have got money in crypto, be prepared to lose that money.

And you don't have things like government guarantees behind that and police investigations and regulators backing it.

The cryptocurrency is still outside a lot of that type of protection.

You just need to be clear about that.

GEOFF BENNETT: Investigative journalist Geoff White, thanks again for your time.

We appreciate it.

GEOFF WHITE: Thank you.