Can Bitcoin be hacked and what will be the result if it happens?

[bensam12345]

Can someone find a way to hack Bitcoins or find a way to hack and get the private keys. If it might happen what will happen to Bitcoin? , Is it the worst nightmare a Bitcoin holder can have to wake up one day to see that someone hacked and found a way to extract all the private keys? All opinions and constructive answers are welcome  

[CrackedLogic]

The Private keys can be brute forced. But I don't think you're going to find the correct combination if you do so very easily or soon. It will take some of the world's super computers years to do that, millions.
However, if you're keeping your bitcoin on a Online wallet just consider your bitcoins lost/hacked already

[Btcvilla]

The Bitcoin network it self can be hacked with a 51% attack, which is highely unlikely.

If you ever see on the news "Bitcoin hacked" it likely means an exchange or online wallet was hacked, not Bitcoin it self.

[1Referee]

As described by CrackedLogic, brute forcing private keys is theoretically possible.

But I guess hackers or other tech geeks will need hundreds of years worth of patience. And then still, chances are high that there is not any progress made  

Perhaps that a huge botnet can get you a quicker brute force result, but again, it's not very likely. At this point our private keys are safe.

[bensam12345]

The Private keys can be brute forced. But I don't think you're going to find the correct combination if you do so very easily or soon. It will take some of the world's super computers years to do that, millions.
However, if you're keeping your bitcoin on a Online wallet just consider your bitcoins lost/hacked already

It is good to hear that Bitcoin will be safe and will take many supercomputers so many years to hack it, it is a good thing to not keep good quantity of bitcoin on online wallets, but rather store it offline in cold storage wallets 

[bensam12345]

The Private keys can be brute forced. But I don't think you're going to find the correct combination if you do so very easily or soon. It will take some of the world's super computers years to do that, millions.
However, if you're keeping your bitcoin on a Online wallet just consider your bitcoins lost/hacked already

What if someone reverse engineers the Bitcoin source code and finds a loophole in the system itself? Is it possible?

[Amph]

The Private keys can be brute forced. But I don't think you're going to find the correct combination if you do so very easily or soon. It will take some of the world's super computers years to do that, millions.
However, if you're keeping your bitcoin on a Online wallet just consider your bitcoins lost/hacked already

brute forcing a private key is only theorically possible, practically will never happen, even using all the supercomputer of the world it would require so much time, that the universe might collapse first, before you finish brute forcing your key

[Hazir]

The Private keys can be brute forced. But I don't think you're going to find the correct combination if you do so very easily or soon. It will take some of the world's super computers years to do that, millions.
However, if you're keeping your bitcoin on a Online wallet just consider your bitcoins lost/hacked already

brute forcing a private key is only theorically possible, practically will never happen, even using all the supercomputer of the world it would require so much time, that the universe might collapse first, before you finish brute forcing your key

For now you are right. But look at computers and technology we had not so long ago. Do you know that computer on space shuttle NASA had in 70. was less powerful than today's smartphone? Brute forcing a private key may be closer than we think. But then again we should have upgraded code of bitcoin or bitcoin 2.0 by that time too.

[gentlemand]

Can someone find a way to hack Bitcoins or find a way to hack and get the private keys. If it might happen what will happen to Bitcoin? , Is it the worst nightmare a Bitcoin holder can have to wake up one day to see that someone hacked and found a way to extract all the private keys? All opinions and constructive answers are welcome  

It happened properly once in 2010. 184 billion coins were created out of nowhere. They forked the blockchain and patched the issue. I can imagine if that happened today it would cause a teensy bit more alarm in the wider world.  

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/CVE-2010-5139

It seems to be semi forgotten these days but it was a tiny space back then.

[Somekindabitcoin]

Can someone find a way to hack Bitcoins or find a way to hack and get the private keys. If it might happen what will happen to Bitcoin? , Is it the worst nightmare a Bitcoin holder can have to wake up one day to see that someone hacked and found a way to extract all the private keys? All opinions and constructive answers are welcome  

It happened properly once in 2010. 184 billion coins were created out of nowhere. They forked the blockchain and patched the issue. I can imagine if that happened today it would cause a teensy bit more alarm in the wider world. 

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Common_Vulnerabilities_and_Exposures#CVE-2010-5139

If someone were to dump them and withdraw the money fast enough, they could make out with tons.

Also for the private key, you could generate trillions of random codes (2048 bit I think?) and maybe make a password list to try and brute force it.

[bensam12345]

Can someone find a way to hack Bitcoins or find a way to hack and get the private keys. If it might happen what will happen to Bitcoin? , Is it the worst nightmare a Bitcoin holder can have to wake up one day to see that someone hacked and found a way to extract all the private keys? All opinions and constructive answers are welcome  

It happened properly once in 2010. 184 billion coins were created out of nowhere. They forked the blockchain and patched the issue. I can imagine if that happened today it would cause a teensy bit more alarm in the wider world.  

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/CVE-2010-5139

It seems to be semi forgotten these days but it was a tiny space back then.

Yeah, it is buried in history, people are ready to find any small loophole the system might have 

[Minerjoe]

The wallet of each particular user can be hacked, it theory. BTC, as a system. no way.

[bensam12345]

The wallet of each particular user can be hacked, it theory. BTC, as a system. no way.

So Bitcoin system can be called as the triumph of maths and cryptography?

[gentlemand]

The wallet of each particular user can be hacked, it theory. BTC, as a system. no way.

So Bitcoin system can be called as the triumph of maths and cryptography?

Not far off. I'm sure thousands of hackers have been trying to bust it wide open for years on end. They've failed miserably apart from that one hiccup. I assume those who've chucked their time and big bucks in researched it ruthlessly before taking the plunge. 

[redsn0w]

It was happened also this thing :

Hello,

there has been a lot of reused R values in the signatures on the blockchain, recently.  This exposed many private keys.  After googleing the addresses, I think it is related to Counterparty (XCP).  Here is a list of the exposed addresses in alphabetic order.  Most keys were exposed very recently, i.e., in the last week.

If you own one of the following addresses, you should transfer the money to a fresh address (before someone else does it for you).  Also figure out, which client has the bug that revealed the private key by reusing R values.  Then notify the author of that tool.
....

It "was not related" with the bitcoin code itselft but with a bad generation of the private key (and address).
This is an interesting article (about that situation) :

Upon running the script last Monday morning, he said he recognized immediately that it had found something. The script, which had discovered only about 500 such 'broken' keys in the bitcoin blockchain's five-year history, had suddenly unveiled 500 more in a single day. A second script he wrote scanned the public ledger to see if any funds had been sent to those addresses, and was startled to see the amount. "I had prepared some scripts to assist finding and spending the money from the broken addresses, but I hadn't prepared it for this scale." He sorted the transactions, starting with the most valuable ones and sweeping the funds from the broken addresses into one he controlled. The scripts prepared and signed the transactions, double-checking for correctness and transaction fees, about one every two or three minutes. Some, such as freshly mined bitcoins that can only be spent after 100 confirmations, took longer.


http://www.coindesk.com/good-samaritan-blockchain-hacker-returned-255-btc-speaks/

[dothebeats]

Can someone find a way to hack Bitcoins or find a way to hack and get the private keys. If it might happen what will happen to Bitcoin? , Is it the worst nightmare a Bitcoin holder can have to wake up one day to see that someone hacked and found a way to extract all the private keys? All opinions and constructive answers are welcome  

Apparently, Bitcoin can be hacked theoretically, and brute-forcing, that is. There is no easy way to achieve brute-forcing. It requires a massive amount of computing power before being able to achieve such a feat. And by that, it means that even the supercomputers in existence wouldn't be able to solve it in a short span of time.

Going back to the question, yes it can, theoretically, but in the current times, it is highly improbable.

[odolvlobo]

What if someone reverse engineers the Bitcoin source code and finds a loophole in the system itself? Is it possible?

It would be more effective for you to do more research before asking questions like this.

First of all, there is no "the Bitcoin source code". Originally, people used the original Bitcoin client written by Satoshi, and then they wrote their own software derived from Satoshi's source code. These days there are several completely independent sets of what you call "Bitcoin source code".

Now to answer your question: There is no need to reverse engineer anything. Nothing about Bitcoin is secret. It is 100% transparent. Notice that I used the word "derived" above. That's right. Anyone that wants to look at or use Satoshi's (et al.) "Bitcoin source code" can. It is right here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin

[jonald_fyookball]

The Private keys can be brute forced. But I don't think you're going to find the correct combination if you do so very easily or soon. It will take some of the world's super computers years to do that, millions.
However, if you're keeping your bitcoin on a Online wallet just consider your bitcoins lost/hacked already

What if someone reverse engineers the Bitcoin source code and finds a loophole in the system itself? Is it possible?

It is theoretically possible to find a loophole in any system.

But so far in 6 years no one has hacked the Bitcoin system as such.
The most viable attack vector is the 51% attack.

[bensam12345]

What if someone reverse engineers the Bitcoin source code and finds a loophole in the system itself? Is it possible?

It would be more effective for you to do more research before asking questions like this.

First of all, there is no "the Bitcoin source code". Originally, people used the original Bitcoin client written by Satoshi, and then they wrote their own apps derived from the Satoshi's source code. These days there are several completely independent sets of "Bitcoin source code".

Now to answer your question: There is no need to reverse engineer anything. Nothing about Bitcoin is secret. It is 100% transparent. Notice that I used the word "derived" above. That's right. Anyone that wants to look at or use the original "Bitcoin source code" can. It is right here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin

Ok thanks for letting me know, I am relatively new to Bitcoins and I am very much interested in the inner workings of the Bitcoins, so it is a group effort to over write the original source code from Satoshi, does someone verifies the integrity of new codes added or someone can manipulate as it was done earlier by creating false Bitcoins? Thanks and I'm just curious about all this as i think it will be the future of money  

[MicroGuy]

Ok thanks for letting me know, I am relatively new to Bitcoins and I am very much interested in the inner workings of the Bitcoins, so it is a group effort to over write the original source code from Satoshi, does someone verifies the integrity of new codes added or someone can manipulate as it was done earlier by creating false Bitcoins? Thanks and I'm just curious about all this as i think it will be the future of money  

I think there needs to be tighter constraints over how the bitcoin core is updated. At the moment, the power is concentrated in a tiny group of developers that can pretty much take liberties as they choose. Most likely, the solution will be to spread the world's wealth across multiple blockchains.