North Korean hackers stole over $577M in crypto this year, 76% of global total

North Korean hackers have stolen approximately $577 million (852.4 billion won) in cryptocurrency in the first four months of this year, accounting for 76% of all global hacking losses during that period, The Block reported. According to a TRM Labs report, the $292 million KelpDAO exploit was attributed to TraderTraitor, a subgroup of the Lazarus Group, while the $285 million attack on Drift Protocol was conducted by a separate North Korean subgroup. The hackers behind the Drift attack bridged the funds to Ethereum, where they remain mostly frozen. The KelpDAO hackers converted the assets to Bitcoin via THORChain, with Chinese brokers understood to be handling the laundering process. North Korea's share of global crypto hacks rose from under 10% in 2020-2021 to between 22% and 64% from 2022 to 2025. The cumulative amount stolen by the country since 2017 has surpassed $6 billion (8.8644 trillion won).