Drift crypto platform confirms $280 million stolen in hack as researchers point finger at North Korea

Drift, a decentralized finance platform, suffered a $280M theft after attackers gained control of its security council administrative powers and executed pre-signed transactions that bypassed withdrawal limits; the incident affected borrow/lend features, vaults, and trading funds. Security firms (Elliptic) and vendors (Microsoft, CrowdStrike) attribute the operation to North Korea–linked actors, noting sophisticated multi-week preparation, social-engineering–driven compromise of approvals, and laundering patterns consistent with prior DPRK crypto thefts.