North Korea’s crypto heist playbook is expanding and DeFi keeps getting hit

North Korea-linked hackers have shifted their strategy toward exploiting systemic vulnerabilities in decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure, notably through the recent Drift and Kelp incidents, which resulted in over $500 million in losses. Rather than breaking cryptography, these attacks manipulate data inputs and exploit centralized configuration choices—such as relying on single verifiers—within complex cross-chain and restaking protocols. These breaches demonstrate that even systems marketed as decentralized remain vulnerable if their foundational layers are misconfigured. Consequently, the industry is seeing a 'contagion' effect, where losses spread to lending platforms like Aave that utilize these compromised assets, highlighting the urgent need for more robust, mandatory security standards.

(Source：CoinDesk)