Ronin Network's $625 Million Exploit

In March 2022, the Ronin Network, an Ethereum sidechain for the game Axie Infinity, suffered a loss of approximately $625 million in Ethereum and USD Coin, an attack later linked to the North Korean Lazarus Group.

The top 3

  1. Ronin Exploit's Rank Among Top Crypto Heists: The $625 million Ronin hack, involving 173,600 ETH and 25.5 million USDC, was initially the second-largest crypto theft on record at the time, later surpassed by newer incidents like Bybit's $1.4 billion hack in 2025.
  2. North Korea's Lazarus Group Behind Ronin Attack: The FBI and US Treasury Department officially linked the $625 million Ronin exploit to the North Korean state-sponsored Lazarus Group, which is known for using stolen cryptocurrency to fund its ballistic missile programs.
  3. How the Ronin Exploit's Critical Vulnerability Occurred: The Ronin Network exploit leveraged a critical vulnerability where attackers gained control of five out of nine validator nodes by compromising Sky Mavis employees through targeted phishing and exploiting a backdoor in a free job offer PDF, enabling them to approve fraudulent withdrawals.

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