Bitcoin Forum

This just happened. Lost the rest of my BTC.
I have my wallet encrypted on my HDD; had 25 BTC stolen from me.
Im out. I HAD 100 in MTGOX, then it got hacked and I dont have access to them. My account requests were denied.

Well, heres a screenshot. I know its not proof, I could have shopped it, but here you go.
http://i56.tinypic.com/2mq85zb.png

F*UCK this makes me angry. I know, the wallet should have been encrypted and whatnot, but the application should have implemented that a long time ago.

If you feel like helping me out with anything, I suppose you could send a few to this (new) address :/

1p8whNBtrXxT1aYSqM6MsP4e7y55gX3zm

Thanks for reading. Goodbye, money. 

Sounds very fishy.

If you had it encrypted, any ideas on how it was stolen?

If you're being honest, I'm terribly sorry for your loss. That stinks.

You didn't fall for this email, did you:


BTW, how can you be confident about viruses, etc, if you have an unencrypted wallet and you lost all your BTC from it. I mean, really, think about it.

If you did lose those coins, you got a virus somewhere (which likely caused your mt. gox account theft).

But I highly doubt that you actually lost those. It's too easy to post a picture on the forums and claim to have lost all your coins and ask for donations.

If I were going to fake that, I wouldn't photoshop it, that would be dumb. I'd just send the coins to an address I own and say they were stolen. We can never know who owns that address. It could be you.

More details would nice. Did you have an unencrypted version for normal access. Have you downloaded anything from bitcoin related sites that promised you something. Does anyone else have access to your computer?

sorry for your loss.

I made a paper wallet to mitigate this very concern.  See my sig line.  All my bitcoins are on paper.  I am sorry for your loss.

Seems like the address that your money was sent to has been pretty active the last 6 days.

http://blockexplorer.com/address/15Afx45asCysyNd9HE7xeZTkzLgDq2JCEx

If everything you say is true, the only way this can happen is a virus. Go back through everything bitcoin related that you have downloaded in the last 6 days. Check your history and note every bitcoin related website. This has to be a targeted attack, so focus on bitcoin related items.

It seems that besides a test spend about a week age, this account has only been active today. Something had to have accessed your wallet today. I doubt you picked it up earlier and it has just been waiting. Are you sure you can't think of anything you ran or visited that may be responsible?

Sucks, man.  

Bitcoin security is not yet simple.  I have the bulk of my BTC on multiple offline backups, not encrypted but physically secured, with no copies on the HD.  Then I have a small account <15 BTC up and running on my machine, fully exposed, have a few in e-wallets, very small accounts on Gox, Tradehill, B7.  Crazy passwords.  

Hopefully I am somewhat safe, but (a) that's a lot of work, more than the typical user should have to do; (b) I could still be hacked in my smaller accounts.

Regroup, write off your losses and let it go.  Go outside, go for a run.

if you cant update to SP1, you might have cornficker.

MS has a patch for that you can search.

Goodluck.

Do you really think cornflicker has been updated to steal wallets?

It is odd that your computer was off when it happened. I don't know what to tell you, it seems very mysterious. Are you behind a router and firewall?

Damn, this sucks, another one.

I too had Win 7 without SP1 on there.

I'm wondering, were you also running RDP or VNC services? VNC for example could've been cracked if you had an easy to guess password.

Try running a bunch of online virus scaners like bitdefender, f-secure online scan, eset online scan, panda activescan...

Run spybot, malwarebytes..and last but not least combofix in case you may have a rootkit. Either way dude I strongly recommend you format, reinstall get yourself a legit copy of Win 7 if you don't already have it and update to SP1. Also if you are inclined to learn a bit about linux setup a dedicated linux box to store your bitcoins on. At the very least run a Linux install in Vmware or something.

conficker gives the attacker remote control of your pc, ala botherder.

you think nobody would bother to do this? symmantec already blogged aobut this possibility, albiet they postulated that the control would be to use the pcs as miners. But surely, stealing the unencrypted wallet is far more profitable than remote mining.... and a F load easier.

If it is a targeted bitcoins virus, it would just loads up your wallet and sends the info via a web call. Your firewall wouldn't even stop a gets. It is really unlikely that any virus programs are going to catch something that simple, antivirus software hasn't yet learned that anything accessing wallet.dat is probablt bad. Of course, since no one should be stupid enough to run such a program, it is possible that it got injected through some known exploit. In that case, antivirus should find it.


Things on the forum are the most suspicious, since the forum is the best way to get malicious software out. If I had to guess, I would start there. I would hate to see someone use namecoin this way, but you never know.

EDIT: I can't find that link anywhere on the forum. Where did you find it?

Yeah tell me about it. I've been kicking myself over not doing that. Really the only thing I should've been using windows for is gaming and running trading applications, the rest Linux can do almost anything Windows can now.

The only thing that I suspect at this point is some virus. Also that namecoin binary seems interesting because I too ran a namecoin binary two days before I got hacked. I wonder...hmm...

Before you format make a vmware image (or whatever other imaging program you prefer) of your running system - for forensic analysis. Get in touch with the major exchanges and report your coins stolen. They will need some hardcore proof but if there is even the slightest chance of gaining them back I'd say it's worth it.

This sucks and is really putting me off investing in bitcoin.

What is the point if some hacker can just come in under my nose and steal everything?

There is no security in bitcoin, it's ridiculous.

Oh here we go..attack of the Linux nerds!

OMG OMG the default bitcoin cleint's security sucks..OMG unencrypted wallet.dat is such a good idea!

Anyways, this is the standard response most of you give...so yeah..moving on.

I don't think they really care about any sum. It all gents blamed on the victim. Tough love?

Hmm..a namecoin binary that steals bitcoins...nice trojan...

Keep proving the world that you are a bitter troll with no clue about computer security. A wallet.dat encryption is a false security feature, go troll somewhere else.

It is hard because there is no way to prove the theft. The nature of bitcoin makes it impossible.

There is security in bitcoin, but it has to be YOU! Don't count on security by default...

I've been thinking and I've come to the conclusion that Satoshi and the dev team should have never released a bitcoin client for windows!!!

Then right now we'd all be a bunch of Linux geeks enjoying our geeky little currency and nobody would've had the opportunity to steal from us. Later on maybe once the security of the default client is vastly improved, then and only then release a windows version. Just my 2 cents.

I know mocking windows is a fun past time for many, but lets look at a few facts we already know:
1. The machine is terribly out of date, without even SP1
2. I dont know of any os that is safe to use out of date
3. Windows is targetted more because its used more

And 3 is the kicker. Not being able to use windows with bitcoin is eliminating what, 80% of the world from bitcoin? Sounds like a great plan.

Besides, many of these types of attacks could probably have been prevented with an encrypted wallet, currently a HIGH priority of devs, and yet nobody dares blame them. And to those that say 'encrypting the wallet will make no difference' do you really think that the devs are thus adding it to pander to 'noobs', but that is secretly known as a waste of time?

Ha! There are ways to mitigate the risks and make it a lot harder for a hacker to get at your BTC. The worst thing is to just leave it in plain sight sort of speak where any simple coder can just ftp or e-mail the wallet.dat file.

They are working on encryption. It should be in the next version.

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/232

True :/ . But I think there can be such a case as within a reasonable doubt. I bet there are other people who've had the same thing happen to them but they're afraid to ever speak of it for they know that forum trolls will just plain ridicule them.

There are thing that the OP can do however to be more convincing such as consult with an expert in BTC security or someone at one of the exchanges, send him the wallet.dat file, have it analyzed. Send the debug.log. Submit a theft report to the police and share that with a trusted member of the BTC community. But *shrug* in the end most will still yell "scammer" or 'liar"

Can't find it myself either.  Google show nothing...

Well said. IMHO this was a big faux paux on the part of Satoshi and the early devs. They should've foresaw the coming waves of thieves that would try anything to get their hands on a person's BTC.

Let me just put it this way. BTC was a system designed by coders for coders. It was meant to be an interesting experiment. I don't think the "elders of bitcoin" foresaw that it would grow into what it is today. They were caught off-guard.

The client is still young. The bitcoin system itself is very secure, robust and well designed. It is the client that is the problem. The client keeps a wallet in plaintext. And notice the version 0.33, it is still beta. Things will resolve themselves. Bitcoin is still very young, we are all early adopters here.

Encryption cannot protect wallets in use, because your legitimate client has to decrypt it anyway. Encryption is good for backups only.

Encrypting the wallet will help, but it doesn't solve the problem. When the BitCoin client is running, it will have decrypted your private keys and they will likely be in the memory of your machine. If you have a virus on your machine, that virus can access memory and get your private keys. Even if the devs of BitCoin work real hard and keep your keys encrypted when in memory, at some point they have be decrypted so they can be used. They may only be in memory or machine registers for a few milliseconds, but if you have a smart enough virus, your keys (and your BTC) will be compromised.

Encryption will help when the Bitcoin client is not running and it will protect you against an attack against your backups or other offline copies of your data.

It is essential for security (and the safekeeping of your BTC) that you keep your machine virus and malware free. If you can get to your money on your machine, so can a virus.

There is lots of good advice out there on how to keep your machine virus free, but the basics are to keep your machine patched, use antivirus, and never, ever, under any circumstances, access the Internet when you are logged in with administrative, root, or any other kind of elevated privileges.

In the Windows world turn on auto updates and let them run every day. Use a current, supported version of windows (that means Windows 7, not XP.) The anti-virus software the Microsoft gives out for free is solid - there is no excuse to not have anti-virus protection. Make sure your login account is not an "administrator". Only log in as an administrator when you want to install software.

In the Linux world, make sure you apply security packages from your distribution frequently. Don't run as root.

I don't post this to taunt or scold the OP, just to provide advice to prevent it happening to others.

I have a copy of that Namecoin build as well. I haven't encountered any theft, but I have certain measures in place to protect my wallet.

I was sure I got that build from the original Namecoin thread, but I was unable to find it there again. That's got me suspicious.

I usually read the description whenever my Win 7 box wants to download updates, and it seems like lots of times I'll see a security update that says it patches a vulnerability that could "allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code" or something ominous like that, so if anything I'd bet that it was not staying up to date that screwed you over.

Is crossposting bad?

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=23085.0

I might look at making a bounty if I can afford one, others could think about adding a bounty too, esp if youve been a victim (I havent, but I want to see bitcoin succeed)

how about we add a few bits and let people do wallet locks?  i think most of us at this time are hoarders who know bitcoisn will be worth 100,000$ per bitcoin one day

a wallet lock is something that only honest users would be interested in imho.. u can use a password to lock/unlock but not to send coins

the fact is.. yeah windows has exploits that pretty much allow hackers at anytime to own your system, they are in the wild before they're even patched and no windows  box is ever totally secure at any given time.. a 0-day hacker can always rape yer bitcoinZ

Yep you're right. Even if the client encrypted the wallet when not in use it eventually has to decrypt it when you want to spend from it. AT that moment it is vulnerable to key logger attack and to any nasty viruses that could are residing in memory (waiting for the opportunity to strike). Someone on a different thread (forget which one) suggested that the client implement a unix style permissions system. Maybe also running the client in it's own chroot (something equivalent in windows) would be a good idea. But in the end it's still quite hard to avoid all avenues of attack. My point is that still the more security measures you can implement the lower the odds that some unclever hacker is easily able to steal your coins.

Someone was caught off guard, but it wasn't the 'elders'.


Yeah, leaving tens of coins in an unencrypted wallet would be fucking stupid.

Ever since A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection (http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html), Microsoft has been dead to me. I have been using Gnu/Linux as my primary OS since the turn of the century. That said, those people claiming "Windows is the problem" are being Naive.

Yes it is difficult to keep a Windows Installation secure, but that does not imply that GNU/Linux distros are immune to similar vulnerabilities. Windows is the market leader. It is perceived to be "easy to use." As a result, many poorly-though out features are simply copied to make Windows users feel more at home. IMO that strategy always leads to failure; with Gnu/Linux seen as "Second best" with little room to innovate. Luckily, users have a choice: they don't have to install Ubuntu if they don't want to :)

Examples of bad functionality copied:

• Wine was vulnerable to the WMF exploit
• Microsoft has finally disabled autorun on USB drives; just as Ubuntu is introducing it.
• Icon previews and all the vulnerable code they expose.
• I'm probably missing many more

I noticed many Namecoin builds had SHA1 sums so I took the SHA1 sum of my ikZZRk.zip (1e24ae15200eba151fae1d8514027666d4a2135d) and found this post (http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=6017.msg106603;topicseen#msg106603). The download link gives me the same file as I already have. The guy who posts it, grue, seems to be an active and trusted member of the community, so I doubt he is behind the hackings, but this is the source of that Namecoin binary.

your coins were sent to the same address as this person:
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=22937.0

strange...

Where is the security? One unencrypted desktop file compromised and, hey presto, your money is gone. This doesn't happen with internet banking.

Even a web client that you install to your own hosting would have been WAY better than a dumb desktop client.

** Lights a votive candle in the "allinvain" church of shitty security precautions - chapel and whineatorium **

"Dear father, forgive me, I have kept my primary balance on my machine with not a thought to security."

"Say ten "allinvain" prayers and donate a satoshi in the name of your sin."

"Yes father, I shall reflect on my failings and pray before the patron saint of 'he-knows-not-what-he-does'."

"Bless you, my child. Sin no more."

Did you say all your coins on mt gox were stolen, too?

Hmm, so basically when bitcoin goes big mainstream most of the users won't be using btc clients but rather be dealing with "bitcoin banks" of some sorts? I mean it looks to me that this is the only way to ensure 100% safety of your funds..well not really 100% because now you have to trust a third party.

This is becoming more and more evident because the moment even 1 BTC gets stolen from grandma, you can be your BTC she'll never use them again.

Hmm, even a warning saying "hey dummy, in case you haven't read the bitcoin.org page/faq your wallet.dat file where the private keys which control your bitcoin balance are stored is unencrypted and unprotected. We recommend that you do not store large sums of bitcoins in the windows client. Please visit so and so website for a how-to on securing your wallet" would suffice.

But then the virus would have to just wait longer until you type your password. I favor a "secure keypad" that you input your password via mouse clicks. Next question is how to trick viruses that may take screenshots?

Grandma will use mybitcoin.com and never touch a wallet.dat.  The client will never be friendly and secure enough for ordinary folk.  It's not play money for them and they don't want to have to match wits with the best hackers from China, the former Soviet bloc, and Silicon Valley just to buy a goddamn pair of socks.

I was thinking about trying namcecoin. Although I dont find it very interesting compaired to btc. Namecoin is now of my radar completely. Maybe someone could setup a honey pot to try and verify the namecoin cleint or the download mentioned in this tread. Interesting times.

Don't get me wrong here, I was not saying that there is security in the default bitcoin client. Read my statement a bit more carefully to gain the full meaning of what I was trying to say - albeit in a sarcastic tone.

Internet banking is different and we can't fairly compare btc to that. With BTC YOU are your own bank.

I have some doubts that the namecoin client is at fault here.

In my case I was using namecoin_win32.zip but was the official namecoin client from the namecoin website. Heaven forbid that actually containing an exploit. That would be quite shitty.

Make the layout of the keyboard different each time, so if the SS it, they cant auto click it in again based on its presumed location.


Exactly, why does gramdma even need to know she has a wallet.dat? "Well DUH grandma, you should have known by reading the dev forums that if you dont compile your client with the -abc stwitch enabled for 64bit hardware that it broadcasts your private encryption keys to the network. Geez, what a fucking tard"  ::)

While it is true that at some point the data in the wallet needs to be decrypted in memory the level of security are orders of magnitude higher.
To start with it is much easier to copy a file with a known name and location from your file system than decrypting it, *only in the instant that it is needed which is only while signing a transaction" in an unknown memory location.
Then you have segmented memory protection which keeps memory segments isolated to the process that owns it.

Any existing Trojan or virus can easily be upgraded to copy the wallet.dat file from a know location and transfer it elsewhere, but copying decrypted keys from a memory location within thew time frame they exist is a none trivial task.

Wallet Encryption will add much more security if it is done right.

The thief should be smarter than that.  Or he wants everyone to know just how many he stole.

Another thing to consider is that the windows 7 iso torrent you downloaded years ago was pre-infected with a trojan.  Later, the author repurposes it remotely to scan for bitcoin wallets.  When the new client is released that supports wallet encryption, the trojan author will update it to keylog the encryption password for your wallet.  That's why an encrypted wallet really won't help much.

If the windows iso wasn't pre-infected with a trojan, you could have been infected in any number of ways (binary downloads, pdf, java or browser (IE) exploits, remote exploits).  And again, old and dormant trojans can be updated later by its controller to nab bitcoin wallets.

Anti-virus programs won't help much either.  Anti-virus programs will only detect known viruses/trojans, not new ones and new variants.  The trojan authors were already winning the arms race.  I warned back in May that it would only get worse when the Zeus trojan source code was leaked (http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=7982.0).  AV companies simply won't be able to keep up.

Using an OS besides windows can help but is far from a guarantee.  The only guarantee is a properly prepared offline wallet.  Create a new wallet and address on an offline and clean computer.  You don't need to be connected to the bitcoin network or even online to generate a wallet and an address.  Save your new address to a text file on a USB.  Back up the wallet file to a different USB.  You can safely back up the new "offline" wallet online too, if its encrypted and the encryption password is safe and secure somewhere else.  That way if you lose the USB or the house burns down there's a second backup copy in the cloud.

Now you have your offline wallet backed up and you have the offline wallet address in a text file.  Send your bitcoins to the offline address.  Send them from your current wallet or withdraw them from the exchange.  Check the address in block explorer to verify the bitcoins are there.  Now that bitcoin is safe in your offline wallet.

edit:  Don't forget to reformat the clean, offline computer.  You don't want forgotten extra copies of your offline wallet sitting around.

Hmm, what if the layout changed every 5 seconds or some predetermined time. It would make it a pain in the ass to input your password but hey it's worth it.

None of this can help.  Trojans can take screenshots at every mouse click so it knows what the password is because it knows where you clicked.  This is already a standard feature in bank theft trojans.

It may only be because it's a really early build, but this archive does not contain the same files as the archive on dot-bit.org.

Yes, well said. These wallet thefts are plain trivial to code for a hacker so that's why they are happening.

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=18238.msg256221#msg256221

+

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=18238.msg259458#msg259458

= Not getting robbed.

I like how one of the others current posts on here is "...secure bitcoin savings account in 14 easy steps".

LOL

I only need 7 steps to unlimited financial wealth: http://7stepstounlimitedwealth.com/ (http://7stepstounlimitedwealth.com/)

Dang. How about if when the bitcoin client boots up for the first time it gives you the option to print out a crypto pad. This is akin to a cheap form of two factor authentication. Each crypto pad is of course different.

The crypto pad will have to remain in memory so the bitcoin client can use it to decrypt the wallet.  Again, the trojan can get the wallet from memory after decryption by the bitcoin client or it can get the crypto pad from memory and use it decrypt the wallet itself.

Similar strategies to defeat other two-factor authentication methods.  If there's a malicious piece of software on the OS, you've already lost the war. 

Spend the energy keeping trojans from getting in your base in the first place.

if any secure password or pad 'lives in memory', well thats fail right there.

It should only be stored in memory for the fraction of a second that its needed.

Further, different languages have best practices to store such values, for example in java store this data as a byte[] rather than String so that you can fill it out with rubbish onced used without waiting for the GC, which may never happen.

You can also do alot of other stuff to make memory dumps harder.

The reason why we focus here, as WELL as on protecting your os from trojans, is because its more efficient to put this stuff in the client. E.g., a safer client makes it safer for everyone, while a safer os only makes it safer for one person. everyone > one person. Its more efficient security.

Hey you should really use this cool new currency, Granny.  All you have to do is buy a new computer -- heck, just throw it together from cheapo parts on newegg, it's not like you're going to be gaming on it -- install linux, along with the bitcoin client, all from a single boot cd -- right, you need to make this first, dont' connect to the internet from your new machine, use the old virus-infected one -- find, encrypt (just use truecrypt, granny) and backup your wallet.dat file to multiple media and, through your regular machine -- not the new one, keep it pristine! -- upload to the cloud, go the blockchain explorer to see you're getting your deposits, and if you ever want to access those funds, just boot your new machine -- don't use it for anything else! -- decrypt and reload your saved wallet file, run the client just long enough to send your other, totally vulnerable, spending account some BTC, and... use that account to make purchases on the interwebs!

See? Bitcoin security is simple and totally convenient.  Money has basically never been so easy.  

Regarding the namecoin connection, did either of you who lost coins but also used a namecoin client try any of the 'Namecoin GUI' programs that people posted about in some of the forums? At least one was a trojan of some sort IIRC. Note that these GUI programs weren't namecoin official programs, they were developed and distributed by third party forum members.

From the leaked data that's floating around, I know your email address is d***n_kn*t**n@*****.com and your password is p*nd*ra.


I hope you didn't use the same redundant info for something like dwolla or paypal.

Honestly, this is exactly why I stopped developing a site called Bitcoin For Beginners ... it turns out it really isn't. I wrote a lot until I realized it is basically an impossible task to leverage clarity and completeness needed to understand and use this shit securely with the brevity and simplicity expected in a tutorial to get someone's feet wet. It actually felt like an ethical dilemma so I just opted to stop development entirely.

I found I wanted to just recommend an online wallet only, but that would have to come with a long disclaimer about trusting a third party to A) Not get broken into and pillaged and B) Not be scumbag thieves themselves.

I also want to add to my last post that this is only a way to prevent getting robbed from alot of bitcoins.
If you do not secure your computer by scanning before you send then you will take the risk there will be a trojan on your computer that is gonna compromise your wallet.dat

To send you need to connect to the Bitcoin network, what opens the gate to the internet.
And not always the gatekeeper (anti-virus software) can keep out these trojans.

So right now the only way to prevent getting robbed big time is just by backing up your big wallets and putting them offline.
Just create  a small account with a couple of BTC wich you can use to spend or send.

The future of Bitcoin for the masses will be online wallet services like mybitcoin.com IMHO.
Not only because of security, but also because running a bitcoind instance will be a major resource hog once Bitcoin goes mainstream.

I really wouldn't recommend any non-geek to even download the client...

Does your Windows 7 have the latest updates.

Is it genuine ?

Do you have a strong account password.

What kind of Security are you running?

Please let me know everything in detail.

This site would have to be American ran, and willing to fight a NASTY fight with Paypal. Right now the community is divided. We can't seem to get anything off the ground here  :'(. Who the hells motivated to make new currency solutions when they see informational forums getting hacked, where there's virtually 0 money to be gained. I don't get people.. I really don't SMH.

Nobody here can create a decent business plan much less organize a decent client, haha.

I am very tempted to start work on a user friendly client, merging bitcoinj and open transactions, with a corresponding bitcash bank to issue the open transactions currency. The bitcoins will be presented as the 'savings' account, and the bitcash the 'daily account'. It sounds complicated, but all the complexity will be hidden behind simple metaphors. The UI will be very easy. The client would be open source.

very tempted.

I just cant decide whether client apps should be abandoned altogether, in favor of a web app. At least for the average user. Perhaps we can integrate both.

To the people who had their bitcoin/namecoin stolen, have you looked into the debug.log file to find RPC commands or SelectCoins ?
Search for the first 10 letters of the transaction hashs.

Here is a GUI send :

Here is a RPC sendtoaddress :

Receiving your own tx or crafted by someone else :

There is several ways to steal money :
1. Copying the wallet
Requires a physical access to the wallet. This can be a trojan (or an infected bitcoin/namecoin binary) that sent your wallet.
No trace in logs, except you receive "your" transactions (like any others) that are created on another computer...

2. Using the RPC command : sendtoaddress
Requires a local or remote access with an infected binary (bitcoin/namecoin/trojan/remote flaw/hole/etc)
You should find "method=sendtoaddress" in your logs.

3. Using the internal send functions
Requires a local or remote infected bitcoin/namecoin binary.
You should find a SelectCoins with a tx hash matching.

4. You put a backup of your wallet on dropbox (with the same login/pass as mtgox, or you wallet was stolen during the "no password" bug of dropbox)


We have a first response here :
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=22937.msg288852#msg288852

This prove the full wallet file was stolen. Coins are sent to the same address as yours, so, we can deduce this is the same case...
=> never use that wallet again, because it contains a lot of other pre-generated and currently unused keys.


There is another case, for namecoin :
http://dot-bit.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=715#p715
Wallet file was stored on a secured linux box, and accessed remotely with a windows.


Edit :
Binary releases (http://dot-bit.org/files/) on dot-bit are compiled by :
- linux 32/64 : myself (all versions)
- windows : grue (all versions) - http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=6017.msg251017#msg251017
- mac osx : lebish (first mac release) - http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=6017.msg268981#msg268981

If some of my projects go successful, and there isn't a solid platform in 3 months, me and my team will develop it. Obviously it is alot more than just a technical challenge, it is a trust issue as well. Part of it is we have to prove ourselves to people that we are 100% dead serious about this crypto currency, and that we're not going away no matter how much they keep trolling, the harder they troll, the harder we work.

This is not true.  If the private keys are encrypted in the wallet and in memory and only unencrypted at the time of sending BTC to a different spot in memory each time and then promptly erased from memory.  This would be a reasonable amount of security and make it difficult for a Virus or Trojan to steal the private keys.  The only problem I see with this method is people losing their password to their private keys but I think that also Bitcoin Clients should mandate the user backing up their keys unencrypted to a removable device or print them out at time of key generation.

-Dukejer

This would be a shitty security method that would protect you only from the most noob script kiddie.
Two ways to hack it:
* the simple: wait for the window asking the password to appear and take the password (keyloggers)
* the "a little harder": You know (by looking at the source, the client is open source, you know?) in which function the key is unencrypted, you wait for the exe of the client to be loaded (you are a trojan, you are resident in memory), put a breakpoint there and snoop the memory. Each time a new version of the client is created you lose half an hour to "expand" your library of possible breakpoints. Hackers do more complex things to games that are protected by latest generation protections. You think that an open source software that anyone can compile is more resistant? Encryption will only make the wallet.dat more resistant to "one shot" trojans that enter, steal and exit (or to trojans written by script kiddies that don't know assembly). This would steal one private key at a time, if the program is well written (but then, if you are already putting a bp in the code, you can directly steal the password).

The only "possible" way would be to make the program polymorphic, like the viruses, so it would be more difficult to put a breakpoint in memory, but it's quite complex... And it would protect only against the second method. And in the end the trojan would simply replace your exe with another one that would only ask you the password and send it to the hacker.

This shit can't be emphasized enough... so many people get pwnt and then scream in anguish to the sky "why? why doesn't the client encrypt the wallet by default?" but the fact is that client sided crypto where you can't really trust the client is terribly hard to get right. If malicious processes can run on your machine, all bets are off... throwing more crypto at the problem just raises the bar for how hard the malicious person has to work to get a payoff.

Sure, right now there is very little work to be done to score a giant payoff - but if you think those people are going to stop trying just because your wallet is encrypted, particularly if the BTC does go to the levels people here seem to think it will, then you're delusional.

http://www.sadtrombone.com/

Hope that helps.

I would hope the Bitcoin client uses a different method to receive your password like an on screen keyboard but this will open the client to a screen capture on mouse event.  Still it is better then what we have now.




If we make the client more resistant to fly by the night attacks this would cut down on the successful thefts on the Bitcoin wallets.  There will be intelligent viruses and trojans that overcome all security methods but these would be more specialized.  We need to make it more difficult for hackers to even want to steal the bitcoins and find some other low hanging fruit like the real banks.  ;)

I like your polymorphic moving target memory idea.  Can you send the code to the developers.  ;)


I understand what your are talking about but what do we do?  Put our head in the sand and let Bitcoin go away or centralize and put our Bitcoins back in a digital bank that is insured by the FDIC and end back where we are now.  I doubt I will lose my Bitcoins on my secure Linux box but everyone I work with that is not technical would not be able to run their own secure Linux box.  They can not even secure Windows.  I gave up supporting Windows for my family and friends.   I only run Linux Systems at my home and I only support Linux for family and friends that are willing to go in a different direction and not use Windows.

Maybe we need a hardware device that is not on the Internet that holds our wallet private keys and uses an API over the local LAN to request that you send money.  Then you have to walk over to this secure hardware widget and put in your password there.  Of course this would put Bitcoin out of the hands of everyday users who would not want to spend any additional money to send and receive Bitcoins.  

-Dukejer

I am contemplating joining a local Credit Union and preparing a proposal for their next general meeting (whenever that is). They have bricks and mortar, a website, and all deposits are guaranteed by the (provincial) government (even foreign currencies). The only thing that really concerns me is that I expect Bitcoin to ultimately fail. I am not sure how an institution like a Credit Union would be able to accept Bitcoin on the one hand, yet make it clear how risky the "experiment" is on the other.

I would be surprised if this happens in less than a year.

It'd probably be a good idea for everyone to use something like LittleSnitch to add to security.  It won't make you bulletproof but with something like LittleSnitch (or ZoneAlarm's solution) you can be alerted to any ingoing or outgoing activity from your computer and you have to either deny it or approve it.

The cheapest android device is 99€ here in italy. It can be used as a "close" system. You install a thin client, install the fat client on your PC and keep on your PC the encrypted private keys (AES encrypted). These keys are downloaded from the android and decrypted by the cell phone on demand (your phone have the AES key). The PC needs "rearming" if the AES key sent is wrong. The AES key on your phone is PIN protected. You can send from your PC to your cell phone the public keys of persons you want to pay. You want to pay someone? In some "sicure" way you send the public key of the person to your cell phone, use the key to decrypt, and send the signed transaction to your PC. You don't use the phone in any other way than a client of bitcoin. You don't put a sim in the phone. You don't browse internet. Done.

Someone else is working on a script that generates a Bitcoin address from a Live CD.  Although I'd love to sell lots of Paper Bitcoin Wallets, when this script is tested and finished and assured to work properly, the Live CD (for someone who can manage it) is in theory a very airtight method to generate a safe address that requires minimal trust.

If you generate a bitcoin address from a Live CD with no network connection, you can be assured it's safe, and there's nobody to trust.  It's also simple enough that most people could manage it, the worst case is their computer is set to not boot CD's and has to have a setting changed.

Of course, you must trust the maker of the script - however, the script is fairly simple - it merely calls OpenSSL to generate a keypair and reformats it into a Bitcoin address - so even if you don't know the nuances of the scripting language, it's not too hard for the conscientious observer to tell there's no shenanigans in it.

Why even download the private key from the Android device instead of leaving them on the Android device? I think for this to work the Android device would have to be locked down very tight which maybe hard if it is connected to the PC using USB.  All it would take is for a hacker or virus to know it exists and root the device from the PC.  A device with Ethernet and only a listening API would be more secure to the PC.  I am also not sure if I would trust the Android device on Wifi.  The PC could send a transmit BTC request to the Android device with the recipient public key and amount.  After the user enters his pin or password on the Android device it would sign the transaction and transmit it to the PC like it was a Bitcoin node to pass on to the Internet.

-Dukejer

Oh come on. While I absolutely agree that Linux is more secure and generally a better idea to use it, this could not have been prevented by using Linux.
Your wallet.dat is in your home directory, in the .bitcoin folder. That means it is freely accessible by any binary you run. All it has to do is grab that file, and ftp/email/something else it to someone. That is all perfectly possible, even from a severely limited Linux user account.
Supporting Linux for its features is all fine, but don't go run around like a blind fanboy, saying the entire world could be saved by running Linux.

Bullshit. A wallet.dat with a password (and said wallet.dat never touching the disk in unencrypted form) prevents outright stealing of a wallet.dat file, as you would need the password and/or keyfile to unlock it. That means that simple hit-and-run wallet.dat stealers are practically useless.
This is also why third-party encryption is practically useless. Either your virtual disk with wallet is mounted (and it can be read off said disk as if it was never encrypted, doing a simple filesystem search) or it's not, in which case you can't use Bitcoin. Having to decrypt the wallet every time you want to use it (and thus leaving an unencrypted copy on your hard drive) is not an option either. This is why the client ITSELF should provide encryption that only happens when the wallet is actually needed, and that doesn't let the unencrypted wallet touch the drive, ever.

And what if your server is compromised? Exactly.

Screen flickering and/or hiding the numbers/letters when mousing over them (funnily enough Runescape uses a system like this for their bank PINs).

There have been proper free antivirus solutions for years. The problem is that the antivirus solution offered by Microsoft is really only a patch to something that should have been prevented before. They should have made a properly secured architecture for Windows from the very beginning. Look at it like this: Linux uses a condom, Microsoft relies on the morning-after pill.

You don't connect the Android to the PC with a cable. You use Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. You don't keep the private key on the cellular because it can be easily stolen. Stealing the PC AND the cellular is more complex (you can easily hide the cellular when you don't need it). Yes, it's perhaps possible to hack a cellular through wi-fi, but it's quite complex, and it's model-by-model. There isn't a single-hack that works for everything. It isn't totally fool-proof but it raises the difficulty of an hack very much. Especially if you consider that economical Android cellulars will multiply in the next year or so.

So, create a new user for bitcoin, use it just for bitcoin and it won't be accessible from your normal user login.  I haven't actually done this but it seems like an easy way to get extra protection.

Yes, and in that sense Windows can provide the exact same protection, because even back in XP there was an option to encrypt/shut off your user directory, so that other users (even administrators) couldn't access it.

I am just afraid that Android is as big as a target as Windows for exploits in the future.  I would think a more custom OS that runs on the old cheap Android hardware would be a little more secure.  I understand now why you want to keep the private keys on the PC and download them to the Android device temporarily.  Unfortunately if someone has enough physical access to the cell phone and PC you could easily just take the hard drive or copy the keys to a bootable USB stick.  Once a site is physically compromised there are no safe bets.  A stolen cell phone that has a password protected wallet in it would not be worth much to a thief without already knowing the pin/password or monitoring the phone with screen capture or some other monitoring method like a webcam from the PC.

-Dukejer

The only point I was trying to make was that Linux would not have been any more secure at this point than Windows. If people are not willing to run Bitcoin from a separate user account, then they are not willing to, regardless of OS.

Is there any third party software that makes use of permissions in Windows like this effectively?  Is there a way to handle this type of usage case, even for versions of Windows without user configurable permissions (i.e. versions below Pro)?

TrueCrypt maybe? http://www.truecrypt.org/

Yes, windows itself. Teach users to log on to that account ONLY if they want to use bitcoin, and make sure the user does not have malware running system-wide (because then the wallet.dat could still be nabbed when logging in to the bitcoin user).

Having software to do this without having to log on to another user would be defeating the purpose - because malware could just emulate and/or control that software.

Would it be possible to add an authorization option for sending bitcoin transactions? 

Thus, a transaction will not be verified until you authorize it with your password.

This would pretty much eliminate the benefit of stealing a bitcoin wallet if you don't have the password.  Its kind of weird that there are all of these "verifications" of transactions but the owner doesn't have the option to verify authenticity.

You can only use a password to protect (= encrypt) the private keys. Once someone has those keys he can do what he wants.

Yes, exactly my point.  It seems the system would be greatly improved if the sender had the ability to "verify" a transaction.  Thus, my money could only be used by me (when I verify it) and then it becomes yours.

Such a system would make the Bitcoin extremely attractive!

It's what is happening right now... and your password is in the wallet.dat file.  ;)

You verify it with your private key... so don't lose your private key.

OP did you make any progress?

Yeah OP, is there anything the patron saint of wallet-fail can do for you?

did u have a dropbox account with your wallet stored? if yes, you got the solution

I DONT UNDERSTAND!!!!111!! I PUT MY PIN CODE INSIDE THE JACKET OF MY ATM CARD SO NO ONE CAN SEE IT! HOW DID MY MONEY GET STOLEN!?!?!?!

lol

Bizarre!

As far as I know, it doesn't actually work, kust makes the stuff impossible to list, but if you know the name of a file, you can get it. That, or my school network does it wrong :)

Would you just kindly FUCK OFF!! I'm tired of you trolling me on every post that I make you ignorant asshole!

Was it 1077? The price of a cheese pizza and large soda?

Yea, which was all fine and dandy until the price of a cheese pizza and soda went up

That's not technically possible. That is what your private key does - it authorizes a transaction. You can put a transaction password on your client, but that doesn't do anything if someone steals your wallet.dat - because they can just use the wallet.dat in a client that does not have that protection. If you have the private keys, you can spend the bitcoins, and there is to the best of my knowledge no technically possible way to prevent that.

+1 for the Futurama reference lol

Sorry to go a bit offtopic, but the robber who created that virus really went hardcore; full time robber!
Here's what it goes after (it's an AutoIt script compiled and UPX packed):


And sends it to:

clintonlowe46@gmail.com

EDIT: For those wondering if are infected, look for a folder names "readme" with a file inside named ""READ-FIRST.txt", inside your AppData dir (C:\documents and settings\<user>\Application Data (2k/xp) - c:\users\<user>\AppData\Roaming (Vista/7))