The well-known North Korean hacker group Lazarus (or APT38) has carried out a significant crypto asset theft, stealing approximately $290 million in cryptocurrencies from the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Kelp DAO.

The attack, which occurred over the weekend, has become the largest cryptocurrency theft so far this year.

Kelp DAO is a DeFi protocol that allows users to earn returns on their idle cryptocurrencies. The attack is believed to have occurred through the LayerZero infrastructure, a system that enables communication between different blockchains.

The threat actors exploited a vulnerability in cross-chain transaction verification, manipulating the system to approve fraudulent transfers. This…