Humanity Protocol to Rebuild Security After $36 Million Hack

Humanity Protocol, a decentralized identity verification project, said it is overhauling its operational security framework after a $36 million hack last month.

Cointelegraph reported on July 14 that founder Terence Kwok traced the breach to a stolen employee laptop. During last year's mainnet launch, backup files for an admin hot-wallet key and some multisig owner keys were mistakenly stored on the device, which was later compromised by the attacker. The breach drove home that operational security is just as critical as smart-contract security. Humanity Protocol is now rebuilding its security system from the ground up.

Blockchain security firm Quantstamp said the attack may have involved a North Korea-linked hacking group. The attacker allegedly sent a phishing email disguised as a message from South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb, attached a malicious file, and infected the employee's laptop with malware, according to the firm's analysis. That gave the attacker remote access. The stolen assets were Humanity's H tokens worth $36 million. The token's market capitalization is now about $211 million.

The breach reflects a broader shift in crypto hacking tactics, with attackers increasingly moving away from exploiting smart-contract vulnerabilities and toward social-engineering attacks targeting employees. Blockchain security firm CertiK said phishing attacks caused $508 million in losses in the first half of 2026. In the second quarter, wallet theft emerged as a main attack method, resulting in $807 million in losses.

CertiK said total crypto hack losses in the first half of 2026 fell 46.8% from a year earlier to $1.32 billion. But it said the figure should not be read as a straightforward improvement because the comparison was skewed by the roughly $1.4 billion Bybit hack in early 2025. North Korea-linked hacking groups were tied to $578 million of the $634 million stolen in crypto thefts in April alone.