BroadChain News, April 27, 02:06, according to DL News, Michael Pearl, Vice President of Strategy at cybersecurity firm Cyvers, stated that suspicious individuals frequently approach people at cryptocurrency conferences, sending suspicious links under the guise of investments or product purchases. This is a typical social engineering attack. Social engineering, which uses psychological manipulation to trick victims into clicking malicious links, has become a common entry point for digital attacks targeting crypto projects. The notorious North Korean hacker group Lazarus has used LinkedIn and fake job advertisements to carry out such attacks.
In February 2025, the $1.5 billion theft from Bybit, a $282 million loss by an individual holder in January, and this month's Drift Protocol attack all originated from social engineering. Matt Price, Vice President at blockchain security firm Elliptic, pointed out that human factors are at the core of security vulnerabilities, and AI is helping attackers refine social engineering techniques more precisely. So far this year, hackers have stolen $786 million from crypto projects, with DeFi once again becoming the primary target.
In the largest hacking incident, the Bybit case, attackers disguised themselves as trusted open-source contributors to trick developers into installing malware. In the Drift Protocol attack, the attacker first built a relationship with the project team, then induced an employee to sign an unknown transaction, handing over administrative privileges. David Schwed, Chief Operating Officer of SVRN, believes that the AI threat narrative is overblown, and the root cause lies in the poor code quality and frequent security vulnerabilities of DeFi projects themselves.