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DPRK (North Korea)

9 incidents, 3 live. 28 days since the last new one.

7 drains in the last 12 months

7 drains in the last 12 months

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Critical 4 · High 3 · Med 2 · Low 1 · Update ½ Less More

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Live

  • Critical✓Contained

    Bitget hot and warm wallets drained of $387.5M after zero-day in third-party security appliances

    Attackers exploited a zero-day in two third-party security appliances at exchange Bitget, moved on to its production wallet job server and used a custom withdrawal tool to drain hot and warm wallets on 24-25 September 2026. The confirmed loss is about $387.5 million (first reported as $351.6M) across Ethereum, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism, BSC, Base and the XRP Ledger. Bitget's CEO blamed North Korean hackers, and Bitget said cold wallets and private keys were not compromised. Hacken's Q3 figures say about $387M was covered by Bitget's user protection fund.

    Bitget exchange hot and warm wallets·Ethereum, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism, BNB Chain, Base·$388M stolen·Since Sep 24, 2026·

  • Critical✕Still activeAI · AI lure

    Joint advisory: North Korea's WaterPlum fake-job campaign infected 30,000 devices, hit 7,000+ wallets

    On 18 September 2026 Japanese, US, Australian and German authorities warned that the North Korean group WaterPlum, linked to the 'Contagious Interview' campaign, infected at least 30,000 devices in more than 100 countries between December 2025 and July 2026. Posing as AI, crypto or NFT firms and recruiters, they get targets to run code during fake interviews and coding tests, including malicious npm packages and VS Code projects, then steal private keys, seed phrases and passwords. Funds or credentials were taken from over 7,000 wallets, and more than 1.7 billion yen (about $10.71M) went to North Korea. The advisory does not say the campaign has stopped.

    Crypto, AI and NFT developers and job seekers·Multiple EVM chains·$11M stolen·Since Sep 18, 2026·

  • Critical✓ContainedAI · AI attack

    Drift Protocol drained of $270M+ after signers pre-signed durable-nonce admin transactions

    On Apr 1, 2026, an attacker took admin control of the Solana perps exchange Drift and drained its vaults of at least $270 million; SlowMist lists $285 million. Weeks earlier, Security Council signers had been led into 'unauthorized or misrepresented' approvals. Because those transactions used durable nonces, they stayed valid until the attacker chose to submit them. The funds were bridged to Ethereum, including more than $230 million in USDC via Circle's CCTP. No code bug was needed. The lesson for teams is that any durable-nonce signing request is high risk.

    Drift Protocol (Security Council multisig)·Solana·$285M stolen·Since Apr 1, 2026·

Past

February 2026 2

  • Medium✕Still activeAI · Agent target

    Claude-assisted commit adds a North Korea-linked wallet-stealing npm package to an AI crypto trading agent

    ReversingLabs reported on 29 April 2026 that a 28 February commit to openpaw-graveyard, an autonomous crypto trading agent built for Solana, was co-authored by Claude Opus and added a bait package (@solana-launchpad/sdk) that silently pulled in the malicious @validate-sdk/v2. The payload steals .env and JSON files and crypto wallet credentials, and adds attacker SSH keys for remote access. ReversingLabs ties the campaign, 60+ packages and 300+ versions over about seven months, to North Korea's Famous Chollima and believes it deliberately targets AI coding agents. No losses were reported; check lockfiles for the named packages and rotate keys on affected machines.

    AI trading agent projects and Web3 developers on npm·Solana·Since Feb 28, 2026·

  • Medium✕Still activeAI · AI lure

    North Korea's UNC1069 used an apparent deepfake CEO on a fake Zoom call to infect a crypto fintech

    Mandiant reported on 9 February 2026 an intrusion at a crypto-sector fintech that began with a message from a crypto executive's hijacked Telegram account and a Calendly invite to a spoofed Zoom meeting. On the call the victim saw what appeared to be a deepfake of another crypto company's CEO, was told their audio was broken and was talked into running 'troubleshooting' commands (ClickFix). Those commands installed seven malware families on macOS that collect credentials, browser and Telegram data to enable crypto theft. Mandiant tied it to the North Korea-linked group UNC1069 and reported no stolen amount.

    Crypto and DeFi fintech staff on macOS·Multiple EVM chains·Since Feb 9, 2026·

January 2026 1

  • Medium✕Still activeAI · AI malware

    North Korea-linked KONNI targets blockchain developers with an AI-generated PowerShell backdoor

    Check Point Research reported on 22 January 2026 that the North Korea-linked group KONNI, long focused on South Korean government targets, is now going after developers and engineering teams on blockchain and crypto projects. Phishing lures dressed up as project documentation deliver a PowerShell backdoor that Check Point calls AI-generated, with activity seen in Japan, Australia and India. A compromised developer can expose source code, infrastructure and blockchain credentials. No losses were reported.

    Blockchain and crypto developers and engineering teams (Asia-Pacific)·Multiple EVM chains·Since Jan 22, 2026·

October 2025 1

  • Medium✕Still activeAI · AI malware

    Kaspersky: North Korea's BlueNoroff uses generative AI to speed up malware in GhostCall and GhostHire crypto attacks

    Kaspersky disclosed on 28 October 2025 two BlueNoroff campaigns aimed at Web3 and crypto organisations in India, Turkey, Australia and other countries in Europe and Asia, active since at least April 2025. GhostCall reaches executives and founders on Telegram with fake investor meetings, where an 'audio fix' installs malware; GhostHire sends blockchain developers fake job tests in GitHub repositories that hide malware. Kaspersky says generative AI has helped the group develop malware faster, and the payloads include crypto stealers. No loss figures were given.

    Web3 and crypto executives, founders and blockchain developers·Multiple EVM chains·Since Oct 28, 2025·

September 2025 1

  • Critical✕Still activeAI · AI lure

    THORChain co-founder loses about $1.35M after a fake Zoom call showing a deepfake of a friend

    In early September 2025 THORChain co-founder John-Paul Thorbjornsen got a Zoom link from a friend's hacked Telegram account, joined in his browser and, by his account, saw a deepfake of his friend with no sound before leaving. An old MetaMask wallet of his was later drained of about $1.35M in Kyber Network and THORSwap tokens (PeckShield valued it at about $1.2M); he believes the key was reached through iCloud Keychain or a zero-day. ZachXBT attributed the theft to North Korean hackers, and THORChain said the protocol itself was not affected.

    THORChain co-founder's personal wallet·Ethereum·$1.4M stolen·Since Sep 4, 2025·

June 2025 1

  • Medium✕Still activeAI · AI lure

    North Korea's BlueNoroff used deepfaked executives on a Zoom call to infect a crypto foundation employee's Mac

    Huntress reported on 18 June 2025 that an employee of a cryptocurrency foundation was contacted on Telegram, sent a Calendly invite and led to a fake Zoom domain. Weeks later the employee joined a group call that contained several deepfakes of the company's senior leadership; when 'audio problems' came up, they were told to install a Zoom extension that was really a malicious AppleScript. It installed a set of macOS backdoors, a keylogger and screen recorder, and a crypto-wallet stealer called CryptoBot. Huntress did not say whether funds were stolen.

    Crypto foundation staff on macOS·Multiple EVM chains·Since Jun 11, 2025·

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