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In just under three weeks, cyber operatives linked to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) have stolen more than $500 million from crypto DeFi platforms. This marks a drastic escalation in Pyongyang’s state-sponsored campaign to bankroll its weapons programs through cryptocurrency theft. Drift and KelpDAO drive North Korea's over $500 million DeFi exploits Notably, the twin devastating exploits targeting the Drift Protocol and KelpDAO have pushed North Korea’s illicit crypto haul for the year well past the $700 million mark. The staggering losses underscore a shift in tactics by Kim Jong Un’s cyber army, which is increasingly weaponizing complex supply-chain vulnerabilities and executing deep-cover human infiltration to bypass standard security perimeters. On April 20, cross-chain infrastructure provider LayerZero confirmed that KelpDAO suffered an exploit resulting in the loss of approximately $290 million. The breach, which occurred on April 18, now stands as the largest single crypto hack of 2026. The firm stated that preliminary forensics point directly to TraderTraitor, a specialized cell operating within North Korea's notorious Lazarus Group . Just weeks earlier, on April 1, the Solana-based decentralized perpetual futures exchange Drift Protocol was drained of an estimated $286 million. Blockchain intelligence firm Elliptic swiftly connected the on-chain laundering methodologies, transaction sequencing, and network-level signatures to previously established DPRK attack vectors , noting it was the 18th such incident the firm had tracked this year alone. Related Reading Compromised developers lying dormant within crypto projects risks next major crypto exploit The bigger risk after Drift may be the access attackers gain before a protocol knows it has a problem. Apr 8, 2026 · Gino Matos Exploiting the infrastructure periphery The methodology behind the April attacks reveals a maturation in how state-sponsored hackers target decentralized finance (DeF