LayerZero has attributed the April 18 Kelp DAO bridge exploit, resulting in the theft of 116,500 rsETH tokens worth approximately $292 million, to North Korea's Lazarus Group, specifically its TraderTraitor subgroup. The attack succeeded after hackers infiltrated LayerZero's decentralized verified network (DVN) by poisoning two RPC nodes and launching a DDoS attack on clean nodes, allowing a fake cross-chain message to be validated. LayerZero blamed Kelp DAO's single 1-of-1 DVN configuration for the vulnerability, stating the protocol had ignored recommendations for redundancy. The exploit triggered widespread panic across DeFi, with Aave freezing rsETH markets after the attacker created bad debt by using stolen tokens as collateral, and over $10 billion in funds fled the platform. Dozens of protocols subsequently paused their LayerZero bridges as a precaution, contributing to a 7% drop in total #DeFi value locked, which fell from $99.5 billion to $86.3 billion within 24 hours of the attack.
RAVE
Alpha
0.67552
+2.35%