The hackers accused of carrying out the largest cryptocurrency theft on record may have had AI-powered assistance.

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That’s according to a report Monday (Nov. 2) from Bloomberg News, which says these hackers are part of a state-sponsored group from North Korea trained from an early age to target “big game,” or high-value crypto companies.

Experts tell Bloomberg that the group, which the FBI has accused of the $6.3 billion hack last week on Binance, is known as “TraderTraitor” and may only have around a dozen members.

Instead of going after individual investors, the group uses a strategy known as Big Game Hunting, employing artificial intelligence (AI) to find their targets.

“This particular group looks for a big haul,” said Park Seong-su, staff threat researcher at the cybersecurity company Zscaler.

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“They target crypto-related businesses, gain an understanding of their infrastructure and then tamper with it — or fund transfer processes — to execute a large-scale theft.”

With new advances in AI “the barriers to such skills have dropped significantly, while the speed at which these operations can be carried out has increased tremendously,” Park added.

Nick Carlsen, senior investigator for TRM Labs, told Bloomberg that new techniques being used by TraderTraitor indicate the group has turned to AI for its recent hacks.

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