Radiant Capital Hacker Turns $53M Heist into Staggering 94% Profit—Inside the Crypto Caper
How does a digital thief launder $53M in stolen crypto—and nearly double it? The Radiant Capital exploit just wrote the playbook.
The Flash Loan Gambit
No brute force, no darknet middlemen. Just a single transaction that bypassed protocol safeguards, drained funds, and flipped them for profit before anyone blinked.
DeFi’s Revolving Door Security
Audits? Overrated. The hacker exploited a price oracle loophole—the same flaw that’s drained nine figures from other protocols this year. But here’s the kicker: they actually improved capital efficiency better than most hedge funds.
94% ROI in Crypto’s Underworld
While VCs fret over ‘bear markets,’ the smart money’s apparently in crime. The looted Ethereum was swapped for stablecoins via cross-chain bridges, then cycled through privacy tools. Textbook money laundering—with a side of yield optimization.
Another day, another protocol learning the hard way: in DeFi, the house doesn’t always win.
The Radiant capital hack
Last October, attackers used social engineering to impersonate a former Radiant Capital contractor via Telegram, delivering a zip file disguised as a PDF to the protocol. The file contained macOS malware that altered transaction displays, tricking developers into signing malicious smart contract calls.
Blockchain security experts tied the attack to the North Korea-linked group AppleJeus, another hacking syndicate that preys on the industry alongside the notorious Lazarus.
By exploiting routine transaction resubmissions, the attackers gathered enough compromised signatures to transfer ownership of Radiant’s lending pools on Arbitrum and Binance Smart Chain, resulting in hefty losses.
The incident remains a reminder of the disturbing trend of cyberattacks that continues to plague the broader industry. So far this year, over $3.1 billion has been lost to various forms of scams and hacks. Hackers continue to sharpen their tactics to match evolving security standards, underscoring the need for stronger industry-wide defense.
