Elliptic: Drift attack incident suspected to be carried out by North Korean hacker group

ME News report, April 2 (UTC+8). Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic said the Drift Protocol attack caused losses of $285 million, with “multiple signs” pointing to DPRK hacker groups supported by North Korea. Elliptic focused on analyzing on-chain behavior, money-laundering methods, and network-level signals, all of which matched previously reported attacks linked to states. The Elliptic report said: “If confirmed, this will be the 18th DPRK attack operation Elliptic has tracked this year, with over $300 million stolen so far.” From a technical perspective, Elliptic described the attack as “premeditated and carefully planned,” with early test transactions and pre-deployed wallets already in place before the main assault. After the attack was carried out, the funds were quickly consolidated and transferred across chains, converted into more liquid assets, forming a set of organized and repeatable money-laundering processes designed to obscure the source of funds while maintaining control. The incident involved more than 10 types of assets. Funds were transferred from Solana across chains to Ethereum and other networks, further highlighting the importance of cross-chain traceability. Drift Protocol is the largest decentralized perpetual contract trading platform on the Solana blockchain, and its token has fallen by more than 40% to about $0.06 since the hack. (Source: ChainCatcher)