Bitcoin Magazine

Blockchain Firms Link North Korea to $6.3 Billion Binance Hack 

Blockchain analysis firms Chainalysis and TRM Labs have linked the $6.3 billion Binance hack yesterday to TraderTraitor, a unit associated with North Korea. If confirmed at this scale, the theft would be the largest crypto hack on record. 

Chainalysis puts the total at $6.4 billion in its own assessment. Chainalysis says funds began leaving Binance hot wallets across multiple blockchains around 4:20 p.m. Eastern Time on October 29. 

The firm said the attacker used an operational wallet funded through Tornado Cash to submit signed authorizations that allowed a Binance hot wallet to run attacker-deployed code. 

The attacker then swept assets into addresses under its control. Binance has said its initial investigation points to a compromised engineer’s laptop, which gave an attacker access to a service container and enabled unauthorized withdrawals. 

The exchange said it has found no evidence of a wallet private key leak.

The attacker reportedly tried to outpace freezes by converting stablecoins into ether and other assets that issuers cannot freeze. Chainalysis said the attacker swapped $325 million in stablecoins into $285 million in ETH over roughly 20 minutes, then sent the remaining $175 million to stopover wallets. Freezes began by 5:14 p.m. Eastern, according to the firm.

Market reacts to the hack

Bitcoin dropped toward $76,000 on Friday morning before trading near $77,400. Other crypto followed suit and posted declines of their own. Total market liquidations reached $1.5 billion, with bitcoin accounting for $468 million and ether for $358 million. 

Long positions, which bet on higher prices, bore most of the losses. The sell-off coincided with a separate incident at decentralized betting platform Polymarket, which suspended international trading after hackers drained more than $2.6 million from user accounts.

Binance said Thursday that the security incident affected about $6.3 billion in assets, surpassing the $1.5 billion Bybit hack of 2025, which was attributed to North Korean hackers. Former CEO Changpeng Zhao wrote on X, “It does look like a hack.” Zhao no longer runs the exchange but remains a key shareholder.

Stablecoin issuers moved to contain the fallout. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the company froze more than $1.567 billion in USDT and that protecting the industry and its partners is its main priority. 

Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire said Circle froze more than $800 million in USDC in coordination with law enforcement. First Digital CEO Vincent Chok said FDUSD stolen in the attack has been frozen. Binance says about $3 billion has been frozen onchain in total.

Binance has enough funds to cover the incident

Binance says it has reserved more than $6.34 billion of company funds to cover the incident. About $5 billion of that reserve is held in the same token assets that were affected, and the company is buying the remainder through market and OTC channels. 

The exchange says frozen and protected assets remain subject to verification and plans to publish an updated Proof of Reserves. 

Reuters, citing a person familiar with the matter, reported that Binance is working with the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service.

Bitcoin may have further downside

Standard Chartered’s global head of digital assets research, Geoffrey Kendrick, wrote in an email to CoinDesk that the negative price action may have some way to go. He said a new base will form after assets are unfrozen and more details of the hack emerge. 

Kendrick argued that the incident could accelerate a shift toward decentralized exchanges. Chainalysis has warned that scammers are impersonating the firm, including those offering fund recovery and recruiting services. 

Victims should treat unsolicited recovery offers with caution and rely on official channels for updates.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading near $76,700.

This post Blockchain Firms Link North Korea to $6.3 Billion Binance Hack  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Binance has suspended all withdrawals after the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange fell victim to what appears to be the biggest heist in history.

The exchange put the “estimated total impact” of the hack at about $6.3 billion and said around $3 billion of affected assets, mainly stablecoins that act as cash for the crypto market, had been frozen.

But analysts at Elliptic said the attacker had changed about $3.3 billion into digital assets that could not be frozen and was working to cash those out as traditional currency.

Read full article

Comments

Blockchain analysts link the record crypto theft to North Korean hackers, as Binance probes a possibly compromised engineer laptop.

The post $6 Billion Binance Hack Bears Hallmarks of North Korea’s TraderTraitor appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Bitcoin Magazine

U.S. Treasury Sanctions Crypto Launderers Behind North Korea’s Fake Workers

The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday sanctioned ten individuals and one company, accusing them of helping North Korea collect wages from foreign employers, many of them American, through fake identities and forged paperwork.

The workers are typically placed at legitimate firms under invented personas, sometimes with AI-generated resumes, doctored photos, or deepfake video during interviews. 

Most of their pay goes back to the regime, which Treasury says uses the money to fund its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs. Some of these workers have also gained access to corporate networks, where they have planted malware and taken proprietary data.

The money and crypto behind North Korean fraud

The sanctions focused less on the workers themselves than on the people who move the money. Two Russian nationals are at the center of the action. 

Vitold Obertas, described by Treasury as a go-between for North Korean financial transactions, allegedly handled nearly $2 million in crypto conversions and at least $1.25 million in other currency transfers for North Korean officials since January 2025. 

Ilya Boykov allegedly converted the equivalent of $3.5 million in crypto for Alis, a North Korean IT worker company that the U.S. sanctioned in 2024.

Two North Korean nationals, Kim Ki Hyok and Kim Hyo Dong, were also named for leading Russia-based worker delegations. Kim Ki Hyok has reportedly moved close to $500,000 in crypto for his team since 2024. 

Treasury also sanctioned the First Financial and Technical Development Center, a North Korean-controlled entity operating in Russia, along with six workers who have generated more than $750,000 for it since 2025.

Treasury published wallet addresses on Ethereum and Tron tied to the sanctioned individuals, a signal to exchanges and other financial firms to watch for those accounts. One Ethereum address is linked to both Obertas and Boykov.

The action follows a March designation of a separate North Korean IT worker network, which Treasury said had laundered roughly $800 million in crypto for the regime. Australia and the European Union have also announced related designations this month, and Treasury coordinated the move with the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team.

Under the sanctions, any property these individuals or entities hold in the United States, or that is controlled by U.S. persons, is blocked and must be reported to the Office of Foreign Assets Control. Transactions with them are generally prohibited unless licensed, and companies owned 50 percent or more by blocked parties are subject to the same restrictions. Treasury warned that civil penalties can apply even when a violation was unintentional.

For companies that hire remote contractors, the advisories from the State, Treasury and Justice departments and the FBI offer guidance on spotting these schemes, including verifying identities, checking where payments are going, and watching for unusual access requests.

This post U.S. Treasury Sanctions Crypto Launderers Behind North Korea’s Fake Workers first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Centralized Exchange and DeFi Losses Dominate 2026 Crypto Hacks Despite Hardware Wallet Failures

Crypto hacks have produced roughly $2.35 billion in net losses so far in 2026 after freezes and returns, according to a report by Lightning.news shared with Bitcoin Magazine. A security researcher by the name of Stacy Muur posted on X compiled “a list of protocols that were hacked for more than $50,000 in 2026.” 230 protocols year-to-date. “Crypto security is absolutely cooked.” September alone accounted for about $768 million in Muur’s tally, driven mainly by centralized exchanges and DeFi rather than pure Bitcoin self-custody hardware wallets, which got significant news coverage at the time.

The largest single loss was Bitget’s September 24 drain of roughly $387.5 million from hot and warm wallets. The exchange and firms including Chainalysis, Elliptic, and TRM Labs have linked the incident to North Korea, citing IP patterns consistent with prior DPRK-linked VPN use, on-chain overlaps with wallets tied to earlier Lazarus Group and TraderTraitor activity, including the 2025 Bybit theft. Attackers used third-party security products to inject fraudulent withdrawal commands without taking private keys.

Liquid Network, Blockstream’s Bitcoin sidechain, took the next-largest hit when attackers exploited an Elements software bug in early September to mint about 4,000 unbacked L-BTC and peg them out for roughly 4,000 real bitcoins, valued near $320 million at the time. The self-described white-hat actors returned 3,400 BTC after negotiations conducted on-chain via OP_RETURN messages and kept about 600 BTC. No federation keys were compromised. The loss came from a type of inflation bug on the Liquid network protocol. 

Samson Mow later called the episode part of an “avalanche of AI-assisted attacks” that had already reached other Bitcoin-adjacent software before hitting Liquid. The network is back and running now, having covered the losses, presumably from investors. 

DeFi platforms showed the same pattern of concentrated, high-value losses. Drift Protocol lost approximately $285–296 million in an April governance and multisig compromise that involved months of social engineering. An investigation commissioned by the project attributed the operation to North Korean actors. 

KelpDAO’s LayerZero-powered rsETH bridge was drained of roughly $292 million in unbacked tokens after a single-verifier design was subverted. LayerZero stated that preliminary indicators pointed to DPRK’s Lazarus Group, specifically TraderTraitor. 

Tectonic on Cronos saw about $120.4 million borrowed against manipulated collateral in late August. Validators later rewound the chain and recovered the majority, though several million dollars that had already been bridged off-network were not restored.

Incidents involving Bitcoin hardware wallets were smaller in aggregate despite the wide news coverage. Galaxy Research placed the Coinkite RNG hack values in the range of roughly 1,596–1,789 BTC, on the order of $100–130 million, with higher upper-bound estimates near 2,055 BTC. 

Ledger losses of roughly $86–102 million traced to devices sold through the authorized Southeast Asian reseller CryptoBilis, where an unauthorized hardware implant captured recovery phrases during setup, a supply chain attack. The company stated that confirmed cases were limited to that reseller’s supply chain and that its own systems and direct sales were unaffected, though there are unconfirmed reports of such bugged devices making it to German markets. Combined, however, these hardware-adjacent events remain well below the single largest CEX and DeFi incidents. 

The year has also coincided with the practical deployment of AI coding agents capable of scanning codebases for vulnerabilities and automating exploit development. Muur has stated that “AI is definitely making it much easier to find and exploit bugs. I think we’re entering a pretty serious cybersecurity arms race.” 

Reports note that code-flaw exploits accelerated after the February release of models such as GPT-5.3-Codex and Claude Opus 4.6, which showed high success rates on smart-contract bug benchmarks at low cost. 

OpenAI has disclosed internal testing cases in which agents accessed unauthorized test-network funds or bypassed controls to complete tasks. Most of the year’s largest heists still relied on traditional vectors such as key compromise, social engineering, and infrastructure flaws, but the lowered barrier for discovering and weaponizing bugs adds a new layer of risk, particularly for complex smart-contract systems and sidechains.

Bitcoin’s base layer itself has not been the source of these losses. The bulk of the 2026 damage has concentrated in CEX hot-wallet infrastructure, DeFi governance, oracle designs, and Bitcoin sidechain code, while pure self-custody hardware wallets, even when imperfect, have accounted for a distinctly smaller share. Nevertheless, calls for an update to self custody recommendations have emerged from industry leaders, pushing forward multivendor multisig wallets as the future of niche industry.

This post Centralized Exchange and DeFi Losses Dominate 2026 Crypto Hacks Despite Hardware Wallet Failures first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

Investigators stormed 40 locations in Texas and seized 187 laptops used by North Korean IT workers to hide their location.

The post US Arrests Two in Crackdown on North Korean IT Worker Laptop Farms appeared first on SecurityWeek.

The U.S. and South Korea have their annual joint military drills (Ulchi Freedom Shield) from August 17-27, focusing on countering the threat from North Korea of drones and cyber-attacks. President Trump said on Sunday that he had ordered the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” joint military exercises with South Korea, according to the New York Times.

North Korea said these military exercises “are more serious, provocative and dangerous than last year.”

Although North Korea routinely criticizes these joint military exercises, this year North Korea went on to say that the U.S. is pursuing a new nuclear strategy that lowers the threshold of using nuclear weapons that pushes global security “to the brink of a nuclear war.”

North Korea’s usual response to these annual joint military exercises is the launching of short-range ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan. This year there was no surprise when North Korea launched two ballistic missiles, saying the U.S. – South Korea drills were a “rehearsal for an aggressive war.” What was different was North Korea’s statement that the U.S. and South Korea and Japan formed a “nuclear alliance” that North Korea would respond to by building a new and higher level of nuclear deterrence.

This comes at a time when North Korea is providing Russia with combat troops, artillery shells and ballistic missiles for their war with Ukraine, while enhancing their relationship with China. The money North Korea receives from Russia is in the billions, with likely Russian assistance to North Korea’s nuclear, missile, and satellite programs.

Although North Korea has refrained from a seventh nuclear test – probably at the urging of China – they are building more nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to deliver nuclear and conventional warheads. Recently, North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, displayed to the world a new uranium enrichment facility with cascades of apparent new centrifuges to enrich uranium. This was in addition to the new uranium enrichment facility at North Korea’s nuclear complex in Yongbyon.

It was the issue of North Korea’s non-declared uranium enrichment sites that led to the failure of the 2019 Hanoi Summit. When Kim Jong Un offered to halt activities at Yongbyon, in return for the lifting of sanctions imposed on and after 2016, and President Trump responded with the request that North Korea declare “all” nuclear sites. Mr. Kim refused and that ended the Hanoi Summit.

Prior to and after the Hanoi Summit, North Korea has threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons in any conflict with South Korea. This is reminiscent of Russia’s President Vadimir Putin threat to use nuclear weapons in its invasion of and war with Ukraine. A war that North Korea joined, as an ally of Russia, with a recent Mutual Defense Treaty.

Hopefully, Ukraine will continue to receive the military support they need from the U.S. and NATO to protect its people and country from a revanchist Russian Federation that’s receiving significant military support from North Korea.

Messrs. Kim’s and Putin’s refrain of using nuclear weapons, with North Korea’s emphasis on building even more nuclear weapons, is concerning. Any use of nuclear weapons would be tragic for the world.

South Korea’s President, Lee Jae Myung, continues to reach out to North Korea, for talks that would lead to peaceful coexistence between the two Koreas. To date, North Korea’s response has been disappointing. But President Lee persists, knowing that an emboldened North Korea, now aligned with Russia, could incite conflict on the Korean Peninsula. Conflict that could cause instability on the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia.

Having negotiated with North Korea for over ten years, it is apparent to me that North Korea wants a normal relationship with the U.S. A relationship that would give North Korea international legitimacy and access to financial institutions.

Now would be the time for President Trump to meet with Kim Jong Un. Such a meeting would deescalate North Korea’s tension with South Korea and the U.S. It would also give the U.S. the opportunity to move in a different direction with North Korea, with the goal of getting North Korea to halt its nuclear and missile programs, in return for the easing and lifting of sanctions and a dialogue to normalize bilateral relations.

North Korea is a defacto nuclear weapons state and recognizing them as such should not be too difficult. Getting North Korea to implement a moratorium on its nuclear and weapons programs would be progress. Sanctions relief and a path to a normal relationship with the U.S. could convince Kim Jong un that a mortarium would be in North Korea’s interest, while aligning with a revanchist and fickle Vladimir Putin is not in North Korea’s interest.

Our goal should continue to be the complete and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, realizing that this could take years to achieve. Getting North Korea to halt its nuclear and missile programs and refraining from fomenting conflict with South Korea are immediate goals that are achievable, assuming a willingness to be flexible on sanctions relief and a dialogue on normalizing relations.

It is in the interest of world peace that the U.S. reengage with North Korea.

The author is a former Associate Director of National Intelligence. All statements of fact, opinion or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the U.S. government.

The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

Have a perspective to share based on your experience in the national security field? Send it to Editor@thecipherbrief.com for publication consideration.

Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief

The South Korean Buddhist monk, the Venerable Pomnyun Sunimin, in his book “What is Happiness?” introduces us to his philosophy of life: “Everyone born into this world has the right to be happy … and being helpful to the world and to others around us increases our own personal happiness.”

The U.S. is now ranked 24 out of the 147 countries surveyed by the Wellbeing Research Center at the University of Oxford in partnership with Gallup. Factors that contribute to this ranking include higher GDP per capita, a strong social support system, higher life expectancy, greater freedom, absence of government and corporate corruption and charitable giving. The U.S. ranking has dropped each year since 2011, with a significant decline between 2022 (ranked 15) and 2025 (ranked 24).

As a world leader, the U.S. is concerned with the world around us: With the wars in Ukraine, Iran, and Gaza and the innocent people killed; with the terrorism of October 7 and the innocent Israelis killed; armed conflicts in Sudan and Myanmar; insurgencies in Africa and Asia, and the criminal conflicts and the drug cartel violence in the Americas.

With this concern, there are understandable debates and doubts in the U.S. about a myriad of issues: the amount of aid we are providing to Ukraine, to defend itself from an invading Russia that’s receiving troops and weaponry from North Korea; efforts to peacefully negotiate a ceasefire with an Iran that says it has the right to enrich uranium and kill innocent peaceful protesters; an elusive peace in Gaza when Hamas refuses to disarm and tension in the West Bank intensifies; and a nuclear North Korea building more nuclear weapons and aligned with a revanchist Russian Federation. Helplessness with the conflicts in Sudan and Myanmar and the jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State operating throughout Africa. Security concerns in Haiti and Ecuador due to gang violence and our inability to effectively counter the flow of illicit drugs coming into the U.S., primarily from Mexico, Columbia, and China. It’s hard to find happiness when assessing the world around us and the absence of peace.

Working with our allies and partners is an integral part of diplomacy and conflict resolution. NATO, AUKUS (Australia, the United Kingdom and the U.S.) and allies like South Korea, Japan and the Philippines are key to managing the ever-increasing security threats around the world. How we manage these relationships with our allies and partners is important.

Domestically, extreme political polarization has replaced polite political debate. A myriad of issues contribute to anxiety among the people: reported cuts to food stamps, Medicaid and social programs, with the rise in food and gas prices that receives daily media coverage. Nicolas Kristof of the New York Times reports a rise in homelessness in California, Oregon, and Hawaii and the plight of the Americans left behind. There’s extensive media coverage to rescind a planned $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” and whether it was vandalism or shoddy construction of the Reflecting Pool in our Nation’s capital. Indeed, there are other political and social issues, like AI, that the average informed American is exposed to daily. Following these and other foreign and domestic issues is important for an informed electorate that will be voting in November and in 2028, but are we on overload? Of concern is the extreme polarization of views on these issues and the government’s responsibility to inform and seek the public’s support on these important issues, without adding to the polemics.

The author of “What is Happiness?” tells us: “Between 1995 and 1998, about three million people died of hunger and disease in North Korea and those who survived also suffered greatly as their family members, friends and neighbors died.” Despite North Korea’s formidable nuclear and missile capabilities, there are exigent health and food issues that continue to demand attention. The U.S. previously helped with these humanitarian issues because it was the correct thing to do. Returning to talks with North Korea to halt their nuclear and missile programs, with the lifting of sanctions and no longer demanding denuclearization as a condition for talks, would be the correct thing to do. It would be a positive development for Northeast Asia and the Korean people and hopefully contribute to the eventual reunification of the Korean Peninsula.

Progress with North Korea should bring some form of happiness to the Korean people and to the people in the U.S. who cry out for a more peaceful world.

The author is a former Associate Director of National Intelligence. All statements of fact, opinion or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the U.S. government.

This piece was originally published in The Washington Times and is republished here with permission.

Read more national security insights from experienced experts exclusively in The Cipher Brief.

The South Korean Buddhist monk, the Venerable Pomnyun Sunimin, in his book “What is Happiness?” introduces us to his philosophy of life: “Everyone born into this world has the right to be happy … and being helpful to the world and to others around us increases our own personal happiness.”

The U.S. is now ranked 24 out of the 147 countries surveyed by the Wellbeing Research Center at the University of Oxford in partnership with Gallup. Factors that contribute to this ranking include higher GDP per capita, a strong social support system, higher life expectancy, greater freedom, absence of government and corporate corruption and charitable giving. The U.S. ranking has dropped each year since 2011, with a significant decline between 2022 (ranked 15) and 2025 (ranked 24).

As a world leader, the U.S. is concerned with the world around us: With the wars in Ukraine, Iran, and Gaza and the innocent people killed; with the terrorism of October 7 and the innocent Israelis killed; armed conflicts in Sudan and Myanmar; insurgencies in Africa and Asia, and the criminal conflicts and the drug cartel violence in the Americas.

With this concern, there are understandable debates and doubts in the U.S. about a myriad of issues: the amount of aid we are providing to Ukraine, to defend itself from an invading Russia that’s receiving troops and weaponry from North Korea; efforts to peacefully negotiate a ceasefire with an Iran that says it has the right to enrich uranium and kill innocent peaceful protesters; an elusive peace in Gaza when Hamas refuses to disarm and tension in the West Bank intensifies; and a nuclear North Korea building more nuclear weapons and aligned with a revanchist Russian Federation. Helplessness with the conflicts in Sudan and Myanmar and the jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State operating throughout Africa. Security concerns in Haiti and Ecuador due to gang violence and our inability to effectively counter the flow of illicit drugs coming into the U.S., primarily from Mexico, Columbia, and China. It’s hard to find happiness when assessing the world around us and the absence of peace.

Working with our allies and partners is an integral part of diplomacy and conflict resolution. NATO, AUKUS (Australia, the United Kingdom and the U.S.) and allies like South Korea, Japan and the Philippines are key to managing the ever-increasing security threats around the world. How we manage these relationships with our allies and partners is important.

Domestically, extreme political polarization has replaced polite political debate. A myriad of issues contribute to anxiety among the people: reported cuts to food stamps, Medicaid and social programs, with the rise in food and gas prices that receives daily media coverage. Nicolas Kristof of the New York Times reports a rise in homelessness in California, Oregon, and Hawaii and the plight of the Americans left behind. There’s extensive media coverage to rescind a planned $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” and whether it was vandalism or shoddy construction of the Reflecting Pool in our Nation’s capital. Indeed, there are other political and social issues, like AI, that the average informed American is exposed to daily. Following these and other foreign and domestic issues is important for an informed electorate that will be voting in November and in 2028, but are we on overload? Of concern is the extreme polarization of views on these issues and the government’s responsibility to inform and seek the public’s support on these important issues, without adding to the polemics.

The author of “What is Happiness?” tells us: “Between 1995 and 1998, about three million people died of hunger and disease in North Korea and those who survived also suffered greatly as their family members, friends and neighbors died.” Despite North Korea’s formidable nuclear and missile capabilities, there are exigent health and food issues that continue to demand attention. The U.S. previously helped with these humanitarian issues because it was the correct thing to do. Returning to talks with North Korea to halt their nuclear and missile programs, with the lifting of sanctions and no longer demanding denuclearization as a condition for talks, would be the correct thing to do. It would be a positive development for Northeast Asia and the Korean people and hopefully contribute to the eventual reunification of the Korean Peninsula.

Progress with North Korea should bring some form of happiness to the Korean people and to the people in the U.S. who cry out for a more peaceful world.

The author is a former Associate Director of National Intelligence. All statements of fact, opinion or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the U.S. government.

Read more national security insights from experienced experts exclusively in The Cipher Brief.

North Korea is strategically closer to Russia and China than any time since the Korean War, while the U.S. does nothing to challenge the growing power of the Axis of Authoritarians (China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea). The irony is that North Korea has, since 1994, wanted a normal relationship with the U.S., yet the U.S. appears incapable of addressing the North Korean nuclear threat.

On July 19, 2026, North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and declared that North Korea “stands by Moscow until victory in the war with Ukraine is achieved. Ties with Russia are a strategic priority for Pyongyang.” I’ve worked with Ms. Choe, a fluent English speaker, from 2003 to 2016, and know she –and others – would prefer dialoguing with the U.S.

And from July 10 to 12, 2026, North Korean Premier Pak Thae Song was in Beijing meeting with Wang Huning, Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the fourth highest member of the Politburo Bureau Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, for the 65^th anniversary of China’s defense treaty with North Korea – The Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Defense.

The visit of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to Beijing in September 2025 to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and participate in the Victory Day parade with Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin, followed by the June 2026, visit of Mr. Xi to North Korea for a state visit are clear indicators that North Korea is working hard to improve relations with China, while maintaining a close military relationship with Russia.

Russia reportedly is asking for another 30,000 troops and ballistic missile launchers from North Korea. The additional North Korean troops would reinforce frontline operations, doubling previous deployment estimates. This, while North Korea prepares to transfer new ballistic missile launches to Russia. The deepening military cooperation with Russia, pursuant to the 2024 mutual defense pact between Russia and North Korea, is not only a growing threat to Ukraine but, also, to the nations in Asia within range of North Korean missiles.

I have written often in this column about Norea’s growing arsenal of nuclear weapons – over 100 by 2030 – and the sophistication of their ballistic missiles, especially the long-range missiles – Hwasong 15, 17,18,19 and 20 – all capable of targeting the U.S. and their progress with short-range missiles that can target South Korea and Japan. Recently, we talked about progress with nuclear-powered submarines, but we didn’t discuss the progress North Korea is making with establishing a nuclear triad – land, sea and air-based nuclear weapons. And with Russia’s assistance, this is achievable in the not-too-distant future.

What are we doing to address this real and expanding threat? We’re watching the Axis of Authoritarian States become more united and seemingly forgetting that since 1994 North Korea wanted a normal relationship with the U.S. (The Agreed Framework); in September 2005 with the Six Party Talks Joint Statement and the historic June 2018 Singapore Summit of President Donald Trump with Chairman Kim Jong Un. Since then, and after the failed February 2019 failed Hanoi Summit and the June 2019 symbolic DMZ meeting, there were no further substantive developments with North Korea.

Since 2020, our failed policy of “strategic Patience” kicked in and we’ve seen North Korea exponentially increase its arsenal of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, while embracing Russia with a Mutual Defense Treaty and military assistance to Russia for its invasion of and war with Ukraine.

It’s time for the U.S., with support from its allies in South Korea and Japan, to decide if we want a normal relationship with North Korea; a relationship that will weaken the Axis of Authoritarian States, or if we want to persist with a “do-nothing” policy toward North Korea.

And if we want to do something, that means de facto recognition of North Korea as a nuclear weapons state – a reality we can’t deny – and entering into negotiators with Pyongyang to get North Korea to stop building more nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles in exchange for the lifting of sanctions, economic development assistance and a path to normal bilateral relations.

It’s time to address the North Korean nuclear threat.

The author is the former Special Envoy for Six Party Talks negotiations with North Korea (2003-2006) and the former Associate Director of National Intelligence. All statements of fact, opinion or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the U.S. government.

The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

Have a perspective to share based on your experience in the national security field? Send it to Editor@thecipherbrief.com for publication consideration.

Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief