BlockThreat - April, 2026
Bloody April, exploited trust, and the Breaking Point of Ethical Security Research
April 2026 was a truly bloody month. We saw $644.7M lost across 61 DeFi incidents, a 5% increase in incident count and a staggering 768% increase in stolen assets. Most of that damage came from LayerZero/KelpDAO at $292M and Drift Protocol at $285M hacks. Both incidents were attributed to North Korean threat actors, TraderTraitor and AppleJeus. Together, they show DPRK’s ability to run multiple long-running campaigns against major protocols in parallel. That should not surprise anyone as the broader DPRK cyber apparatus is believed to include thousands of operators.
However, what worries me is not only the two outlier hacks, but the double-digit increase in incident count month after month throughout 2026. Who is driving that trend, what it means for defenders, and how the blockchain security industry should respond are the focus of the recently published The Breaking Point of Ethical Security Research.
In this monthly edition, we dig into the latest security metrics, update the Top 10 DeFi Attack Vectors, and break down the emerging threats defenders need to understand before they become the next headline.