Financial Theft
KelpDAO suffers $290 million heist tied to Lazarus hackers
State-sponsored North Korean hackers are likely behind the $290 million crypto-heist that impacted the KelpDAO DeFi project on Saturday. The attack reportedly also impacted the lending protocols Compound, Euler, and Aave, with the latter announcing a freeze and blocking new deposits or borrowing using rsETH as collateral. KelpDAO is a decentralized finance (DeFi) project built around liquid […]
Grinex exchange blames “Western intelligence” for $13.7M crypto hack
Kyrgyzstan-based cryptocurrency exchange Grinex has suspended its operations after suffering a $13.7 million hack attributed to Western intelligence agencies. The funds were stolen from cryptocurrency wallets belonging to Russian users, as the platform enables crypto-ruble exchange operations between Russian businesses and individuals. Launched early last year, Grinex has Russian links and is believed to be […]
FBI: Americans lost a record $21 billion to cybercrime last year
U.S. victims lost nearly $21 billion to cyber-enabled crimes last year, driven primarily by investment scams, business email compromise, tech support fraud, and data breaches, the Federal Bureau of Investigation says. The figure continues the year-over-year record trend as it is up 26% compared to 2024, when Americans lost $16.6 billion to cybercrime. A similar uptick was recorded […]
Drift loses $280 million North Korean hackers seize Security Council powers
The Drift Protocol lost at least $280 million after a threat actor took control of its Security Council administrative powers in a planned, sophisticated operation. Blockchain intelligence firms Elliptic and TRM Labs linked the attacks to North Korean threat actors, based on multiple on-chain indicators consistent with DPRK tradecraft. These include Tornado Cash usage, CarbonVote deployment timing (09:30 Pyongyang time), cross-chain […]
EU court adviser says banks must immediately refund phishing victims
Athanasios Rantos, the Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), has issued a formal opinion suggesting that banks must immediately refund account holders affected by unauthorized transactions, even when it’s their fault. The opinion was issued in response to a request for a preliminary ruling submitted by the District Court in Koszalin, Poland, […]
Google says 90 zero-days were exploited in attacks last year
Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) tracked 90 zero-day vulnerabilities actively exploited throughout 2025, almost half of them in enterprise software and appliances. The figure is a 15% increase compared to 2024, when 78 zero-days were exploited in the wild, but lower than the record 100 zero days tracked in 2023. Zero-day vulnerabilities are security issues […]
Step Finance says compromised execs’ devices led to $40M crypto theft
Step Finance announced that it lost $40 million worth of digital assets after hackers compromised devices belonging to the company’s team of executives. The platform detected the breach on January 31 and engaged cybersecurity researchers who helped it recover some of the stolen assets. Step Finance is a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform and analytics tool built […]
Hacker steals over $120 million from Balancer DeFi crypto protocol
The Balancer Protocol announced that hackers had targeted its v2 pools, with losses reportedly estimated to be more than $128 million. Balancer is a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol built on the Ethereum blockchain as an automated market maker and liquidity infrastructure layer. It provides flexible pools with custom token mixes, allowing users to deposit assets, […]
Massive surge of NFC relay malware steals Europeans’ credit cards
Near-Field Communication (NFC) relay malware has grown massively popular in Eastern Europe, with researchers discovering over 760 malicious Android apps using the technique to steal people’s payment card information in the past few months. Contrary to the traditional banking trojans that use overlays to steal banking credentials or remote access tools to perform fraudulent transactions, […]
North Korean hackers stole over $2 billion in crypto this year
North Korean hackers have stolen an estimated $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency assets in 2025, marking the largest annual total on record. The figure brings the total confirmed amount stolen by these threat actors to more than $6 billion. According to the United Nations and government agencies, these funds are used to further the development […]