During the weekend, hackers stole over $290 million in cryptocurrency from Kelp DAO, a protocol for earning yields on idle crypto investments. By Monday, LayerZero, one of the impacted projects, accused North Korea of the theft, marking the largest crypto heist of the year, surpassing a $285 million hack at crypto exchange Drift earlier in April.
LayerZero, through a post on X, reported that the hackers exploited Kelp DAO via its LayerZero bridge, which facilitates interactions between blockchains. The hackers exploited Kelp’s security settings, which lacked multiple verification processes, enabling them to steal the funds using fraudulent transactions.
LayerZero pointed to “preliminary indicators” suggesting North Korea’s involvement, specifically its hacking group known as TraderTraitor. Kelp DAO, however, responded by blaming LayerZero’s default settings for the $290 million disaster.
In recent years, North Korean hackers have been highly effective in crypto theft under Kim Jong Un’s regime. Last year, they stole over $2 billion, contributing to a total of approximately $6 billion in stolen crypto since 2017.