The NEAR Intents hack exploited a vulnerability in the Omni infrastructure by tricking the system into recognizing unverified asset deposits. An attacker submitted a specific set of transactions that deceived the infrastructure into believing assets had been deposited, causing smart contracts on the NEAR side to create false ownership records for the user. AlexAuroraDev explained that the exploit relied on this deception mechanism, where the infrastructure generated valid-looking asset records without actual underlying deposits. This allowed the attacker to manipulate smart contract state and access funds based on fabricated transaction data.