Cryptocurrency exchange Bitget Says North Korea

Cryptocurrency exchange Bitget says suspected North Korea-linked threat actors stole $351.6 million from a limited number of hot and warm wallets. The company detected unauthorized transfers on September 24 and temporarily suspended withdrawals. Bitget said customer balances, cold wallets and most platform assets remain secure. Mandiant and SlowMist are investigating the incident, while deposits and trading continue normally. “We are currently working with independent third-party experts Mandiant and SlowMist for a full investigation. Our first priority is our users. User balances remain intact, and Bitget’s User Protection Fund covers the impact on this platform-wide incident.” the company added. “Bitget Wallet operates as a self-custodial wallet on a completely separate and independent infrastructure from Bitget Exchange and was not affected by this incident. Bitget Wallet users’ assets remain onchain under users’ control and remain unaffected.” Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said the security breach affected ETH, XRP, BNB, AVAX, USDT and USDC across several blockchains. The attacker reportedly compromised a backend wallet system, spoofed transaction data and bypassed the authorization process to move funds. Bitget said affected blockchain foundations were contacted and some have frozen hacker wallets. “We have contacted the foundations of all affected chains, and some foundations have confirmed the freezing of hacker wallet addresses,” Chen explained. “Based on IP behavior patterns and on-chain analysis, the attack method in this incident is highly consistent with known patterns of North Korean hacker organizations.” Bitget is a cryptocurrency exchange and Web3 company founded in 2018. It provides services for buying, selling and trading digital assets, including spot and futures trading, copy trading and other financial products. The company has expanded beyond crypto into traditional markets and now describes itself as a “Universal Exchange.” Bitget says it serves more than 120 million users in over 150 countries and regions. The attribution to North Korea-linked threat actors doesn’t surprise. According to Chainalysis, North Korean hackers stole at least $2.02 billion in cryptocurrency in 2025, bringing the estimated total stolen by DPRK-linked actors to $6.75 billion. The thefts increasingly target crypto exchanges and other digital-asset services, with attackers using techniques ranging from sophisticated cyber intrusions to fake IT-worker identities. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon (SecurityAffairs – hacking, Bitget)