Global Cyber Offensive: AI and Hackers are Shaking the Financial System

• Attackers stole over USD 6 billion from Binance; the FBI blames North Korea.
• Banks in France and South Korea reported breaches but assured user protection.

In recent weeks, a series of cyberattacks has successively impacted cryptocurrency exchanges, banks, and financial infrastructures globally. Although there is nothing to suggest a single coordinated operation, the temporal proximity of the incidents and the involvement of artificial intelligence (AI) agents have raised alarms among international authorities.

In France, Crédit Mutuel Arkéa confirmed on November 4 that it was a victim of an attack that facilitated fraudulent transactions. As reported today by CriptoNoticias, external assessments indicate that approximately 118 million euros were extracted and converted into cryptocurrencies. Despite interruptions in its mobile application services, the bank categorically assured that customer funds are protected and will not suffer losses.

The pressures on state infrastructures also became evident in Belgium. The federal finance service was forced to proactively deactivate its tax portal on October 28 after registering malicious activity, which necessitated extending tax filing deadlines until mid-November. In light of the regional situation, the European Central Bank requested eurozone entities to submit formal cyber defense plans focused on AI before the end of October.

The impact of automated hacking tools has been particularly pronounced in Asia. In South Korea, a wave of intrusions affected nine banking entities, including Shinhan Bank, where income data and loan limits of over 25,000 customers were exposed. Investigations link these attacks to the use of ARTEX, a model of penetration AI agents. This pattern coincides with a recent report from security firm CrowdStrike, which detected a group linked to China using identical methodologies to breach over 200 organizations in 14 countries in just eleven days.

Japan recorded a parallel incident when the trading servers of GMO Internet were compromised. The perpetrators demanded an initial ransom of 50 million dollars payable in cryptocurrencies, a demand that the company rejected. In response to this and other incidents, the Japanese government began structuring an emergency active cybersecurity measures package.

The digital asset sector experienced the largest-scale attack. On October 29, attackers drained over 6.3 billion dollars from the wallets of the Binance exchange in a span of 30 minutes through multiple networks. After temporarily suspending withdrawals, the platform confirmed it would absorb the losses using its own funds. Analysis firms and the FBI attributed the multimillion-dollar diversion to hackers associated with North Korea.

The convergence of these incidents reflects a previously unseen sophistication in theft tactics. With the deployment of software that accelerates the exploitation of traditional vulnerabilities, both banking institutions and platforms that safeguard digital assets face the urgency of restructuring their prevention models before the volume of automated attacks surpasses the operational and guarantee capacities of the sector.

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