Notorious North Korean hacker collective Lazarus Group steals whopping $3 billion in cryptocurrencies. 

Lazarus spent 6 years infiltrating and mapping vulnerabilities across crypto bridges, platforms. 

2022 proves bumper year with $1.7 billion stolen from DeFi protocols like Axie Infinity. 

Funds partially laundered through mixers, likely bankrolling North Korea’s sanctioned nuclear program. 

 Massive heist rattles the crypto sector, wipes out $200 billion+ from digital asset markets.

Lawmakers push for tougher oversight and security regulations to thwart crypto cybercrime. 

But clampdowns could undermine innovation in the bourgeoning DeFi ecosystem space. 

Heist spotlights pressing need to build robust security into crypto protocol designs. 

Users are urged to take precautions like cold storage, and multi-factor authentication to secure assets. 

With growing crypto adoption, hackers will keep attacking the “golden honeypot” unless better defenses erected.