North Korea Expands Crypto Heists, Targeting DeFi

North Korea's Lazarus Group has escalated its cryptocurrency theft operations, recently targeting decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols like Drift and Kelp, siphoning over $500 million in just two weeks. These exploits demonstrate a shift from social engineering to exploiting structural weaknesses and design choices within crypto infrastructure, rather than breaking cryptography itself. The attacks highlight systemic risks arising from the gap between theoretical decentralization and real-world implementation, particularly concerning single verifiers and cross-chain infrastructure, which are increasingly becoming targets due to the large value they hold.