DeFi loses $630M to attacks targeting critical third‑party infrastructure

TL;DR:

• Industry figures account for more than $630 million extracted through exploits targeting external dependencies so far in 2026.
• The KelpDAO incident represented $292 million stolen through the compromise of RPC nodes in off-chain verification infrastructure.
• The attack against Drift Protocol in April 2026 resulted in $285 million in losses through the deliberate manipulation of collateral prices.

During the first seven months of 2026, attacks targeting critical third-party infrastructure in the DeFi ecosystem caused cumulative losses of over $630 million. On Wednesday, July 22, an algorithmic stablecoin collapsed by more than 99% after experiencing price oracle manipulation.

The attacker injected false information regarding the price of Bitcoin into the Balance Coin protocol to drain approximately $912,000 in assets. The manipulation triggered automatic liquidations of collateral positions that were healthy prior to the incident.

In July 2026, the Ostium protocol suffered the extraction of $23.75 million through the submission of adulterated price reports with authorized signatures. Preliminary analysis of the report suggests that the oracle signer’s credentials were compromised by third parties.

… Continue reading the full article at the original source below.