A six-month infiltration campaign by North Korean hackers at Drift has sent shockwaves through the crypto industry, which is still reeling from massive exploits worth billions of dollars. However, a more pressing question has emerged: why does North Korea persist in targeting crypto, and what makes its approach distinct from other state-sponsored hacking operations? According to security experts, the answer lies in the fact that crypto provides the regime with a vital revenue stream and helps keep its economy afloat.
'North Korea lacks the luxury of patience,' explained Dave Schwed, Chief Operating Officer at SVRN and founder of the cybersecurity masters program at Yeshiva University. 'The country is under comprehensive international sanctions and requires hard currency to fund its weapons programs. The UN and multiple intelligence agencies have confirmed that crypto theft is a primary funding mechanism for North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile development.' This sense of urgency explains why North Korean hackers carry out large-scale, traceable heists on public blockchains instead of quietly using crypto to evade sanctions like other state actors. The reason, according to Schwed, is structural.
Unlike Russia, which has a functioning economy with oil, gas, and commodity exports, North Korea has almost nothing left to sell. 'Their exports are almost entirely sanctioned, and they don't have a functioning economy that needs a payment rail. They need direct revenue,' Schwed said. 'Crypto theft gives them immediate access to liquid value globally, without needing a counterparty willing to do business with them.' This distinction – crypto as infrastructure versus crypto as a target – is what separates North Korea from other state-backed hackers, including Russia and Iran.
While Russia uses crypto to work around sanctions and Iran uses it to fund proxy networks, North Korea is running a state-sponsored heist operation. 'Their targets are exchanges, wallet providers, DeFi protocols, and individual engineers and founders who have signing authority or infrastructure access,' said Alexander Urbelis, Chief Information Security Officer at ENS Labs and a professor of cybersecurity at King's College London. 'The victim is whoever holds the keys or access to the infrastructure that holds the keys.' In contrast, Russia and Iran treat crypto as incidental, a means to broader geopolitical ends. 'Russia targets elections, energy infrastructure, and government systems.
Iran goes after dissidents and regional adversaries,' Urbelis said. 'When either of them touches crypto, it's to move money, not to steal it from the ecosystem.' North Korea's singular focus has driven its operatives to adopt tactics more commonly associated with intelligence agencies than criminal hackers, including months-long relationship building, fabricated identities, and supply chain infiltration.
The Drift campaign is just the latest example. 'You're not defending against a phishing email from a random scammer,' Urbelis said.
'You're defending against someone who spent six months building a relationship specifically to compromise one person who has the access you need to protect.' Crypto's architecture makes it a uniquely attractive hunting ground for North Korean hackers. Unlike traditional finance, where successful hacks often encounter friction in the form of compliance checks and settlement delays, crypto transactions are final and irreversible. 'Once a transaction is signed and confirmed, it's final,' Urbelis said.
The Bybit exploit earlier last year moved $1.5 billion in roughly 30 minutes, a pace and scale that would be nearly impossible in the traditional banking system. This finality fundamentally changes the security calculus, making it essential to stop attacks before they happen.
While banks operate under decades of regulatory guidance and audit requirements, many crypto projects are still improvising, often prioritizing speed and innovation over governance and controls. This gap creates an environment where even sophisticated teams can be vulnerable to North Korea's long-term infiltration tactics. 'This is the hardest operational security problem in crypto right now,' Urbelis said.
'I don't think the industry has solved it.'