securityHIGH IMPACTApr 27, 2026, 6:06 AM
Lazarus Group fingered in $620M April hack wave — Drift and Kelp DAO drove 95%
TL;DR
April crypto theft hits roughly $620M, with two North Korea-linked exploits accounting for about $577M of the stolen funds.
Why it matters
Why it matters: DPRK is now harvesting crypto faster than US sanctions can squeeze it, signaling DeFi's human-layer is the new attack surface.
The details
- •Drift Protocol lost $285M on April 1 after attackers spent months posing as a trading firm to social-engineer internal teams.
- •Kelp DAO drained for $292M on April 18, stranding wrapped ether across 20 chains in 2026's worst DeFi exploit.
- •April is the worst single hack month since Bybit's February 2025 incident, per Phemex and Live Bitcoin News tallies.
Primary source
Read the original report on CoinDesk ↗degen0x summarizes, contextualizes, and curates. All credit to the reporting outlet. This briefing was generated Apr 27, 2026, 6:06 AM.
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