Rhea Finance, a lending protocol within the NEAR ecosystem, has suffered a significant loss of approximately $18.4 million due to a DeFi exploit. The attack exploited vulnerabilities in the platform's margin trading function, allowing the attacker to manipulate swap paths and drain liquidity from the main pool. This incident highlights ongoing security concerns within the DeFi sector, particularly regarding slippage protection mechanisms. In a detailed post-mortem report, Rhea Finance explained that the attacker used fake token pools to redirect borrowed debt tokens, leaving many positions undercollateralized and triggering widespread liquidations. The exploit resulted in substantial financial losses for both the protocol and its users. In response, Rhea Finance has committed to using available resources to recover losses for affected users. The hack has also led to a decline in the value of Rhea Finance's native token, RHEA, and raised broader concerns about DeFi security.