Is it illegal for someone to hack my BTC wallet?

[strasboug]

hacking by definition is illegal, but do the hackers care? If they do, they won't be called hackers.

illegal does not mean people don't do, so better protect your own assets to avoid losses.

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[ethereumhunter]

hacking by definition is illegal, but do the hackers care? If they do, they won't be called hackers.

illegal does not mean people don't do, so better protect your own assets to avoid losses.

i think not all hackers will do illegal activity because i know some of hackers that helped investigated in internet problem but in our mind, the hacker word is mean for illegal and its happen with us and we only judge the hacker is bad.

i think its illegal for us to stolen someone's bitcoin and i think we don't have to do this, because it just make people outside will thinking that bitcoin is not safe for them.

[Tyrantt]

Well from my point of view, taking something that doesn't belong to you without the owners knowledge of authorization is considered a theft, right?

[bob123]

Its definetly illegal if this persons "steals" your information.
e.g. if he hacks your pc or "reads" your private key when he can see it..
But if this person !randomly! generates this private key.. thats definetly not illegal.

[GreenBits]

It is illegal to access your terminal without your permission, be that remotely, or with direct terminal access. ESP if data is accessed/tampered with. The loss of value you would experience, at the very least, should give you a civil suit if you can identify and prove the hacker.

[FlightyPouch]

For me, hacking your bitcoin address is a really bad thing, it is illegal and against the law. You can sue this person.
But if someone just get a hold your private key, lets say he just found it written on a paper, and then transfer your balance to their wallet, I think that is not theft. That is just a coincidence.

[pecson134]

It is indeed an illegal act. Hacking alone by any means is still illegal regardless of what type of account it may be.It can be punishable by law under cyber crime. Unless you had given them permission to access the account it may be considered as hacking.

[diegz]

For me, hacking your bitcoin address is a really bad thing, it is illegal and against the law. You can sue this person.
But if someone just get a hold your private key, lets say he just found it written on a paper, and then transfer your balance to their wallet, I think that is not theft. That is just a coincidence.

It's hard to sue people who steal your bitcoin. Most of the countries don't handle such kind of case. Though it is illegal and wrong, you can't do anything about it except cry.  

So instead of suing them, why not take good care of wallet before it happens to us? Probably if it is stolen it is our own fault and no one else, there's been lots of reminders about how to take care of our wallet, so I think no need to reach the point where our wallet will be hacked.

[LittleBitFunny]

The problem is that the kind of people who would hack your wallet are very good at anonymity/pseudonymity and probably choose Bitcoin for its pseudonymity.  There's also the fact that since Bitcoin is quite unique and not really regarded as a stock or as money by most governments police often don't pay much attention.  It's fairly relevant what country you're living in but in the most basic sense hacking your wallet is illegal just for hacking or for theft.  If you report it to the proper authorities and you manage to find the identity of the hacker with appropriate evidence (which is hard in most cases) then I suspect they'll treat your case seriously.

You also need to think about how you can prevent it in the future though.  If you have been hacked, think about what you could do to stop it happening again - consider a hardware wallet, and if you don't have one use an offline wallet and use good antivirus (and preferably a good VPN).

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

Techopedia definition: Hacking is unauthorized intrusion into a computer or a network.
As long as the hacker will need to access the network or pc without permission that's invading privacy translated in legal terms is Computer trespass or might be considered computer fraud. So YES it's illegal for someone to hack your BTC wallet!

[wizmo]

Yes it's illegal but untraceable too means if a person get access to your wallet and send money to other wallets you can't find him.

[1.btcwonder]

To the extent I know, hacking for taking something is unlawful. I think the administration doesn't do anything, they are not in charge of that, aside from this the programmers also hack their administration site. On the off chance that they hacked into your machine and stole the private key is unlawful, they destroyed the private key while snooping on a free association is unlawful, they forcibly take the private key into reality is not unlawful. On the off chance that they snapped a fix of private key QR code behind you at an ATM is not unlawful.

[Emmami@758]

I'm not clear on this one point.  If somebody got a hold of my private key and moved funds from an address that I claimed on the ledger, is that against the law?  At what point could that be considered a crime?  For example, if they hacked into my machine and stolen the private key; if they sniped the pk while snooping on a public access connection; brute forced the pk into existence; or just plane snapped a shot of my qr code over my shoulder....ect  In which of those examples could I pursue prosecution for the theft of my coin?  

yeah 100% it is correct. around the world mostly people using bit coins. in some country's giving bit coins salary for their employees. so who can try to hack our bit coins wallet that is very wrong and and illegal. but try to hack bit coins is impossible because it is more secure.

[Palmerson]

Any unauthorized access to your account or computer is considered a violation of the law and will have criminal consequences if the guilty will find. As for your private key, then harder. It can be related to your intellectual property, but to determine the cost of theft is difficult because there is no recognition bakenov and legally to determine its value difficult.

[jaocoincrypto18]

I'm not clear on this one point.  If somebody got a hold of my private key and moved funds from an address that I claimed on the ledger, is that against the law?  At what point could that be considered a crime?  For example, if they hacked into my machine and stolen the private key; if they sniped the pk while snooping on a public access connection; brute forced the pk into existence; or just plane snapped a shot of my qr code over my shoulder....ect  In which of those examples could I pursue prosecution for the theft of my coin?  

If someone hack your private keys and successfully steal you bitcoin of course that is illegal and a crime but the problem is you cant arrest anyone for that but maybe if bitcoin is legal in your country but if not legal then the authorities cant help you especially bitcoin transaction is hard to to trace. So that is why we need to take care of our private keys and treat it as very important than your life.

[savushkinTA]

While bitcoin is not legal, its theft will not be considered a crime

[Protected101]

I'm not clear on this one point.  If somebody got a hold of my private key and moved funds from an address that I claimed on the ledger, is that against the law?  At what point could that be considered a crime?  For example, if they hacked into my machine and stolen the private key; if they sniped the pk while snooping on a public access connection; brute forced the pk into existence; or just plane snapped a shot of my qr code over my shoulder....ect  In which of those examples could I pursue prosecution for the theft of my coin?  

That was very wrong and illegal transaction they do hacking an account.That was a kind of theft and they are so greedy doing like that.The problem now is we cannot accused them and arrest because there is no legal authorities for now in bitcoin.But somedat they will be punished if bitcoin will be legalized in our country.

[Gotottack]

I see theft, based on the facts stated. But there are two schools of thought. Let me discuss them.

FIRST. - If you are the victim of account hacking, you can file a case against the hacker because, for all intents and purposes, your country has not spoken about how the treatment for Bitcoin will go about. In short, your government officials' acquiescence on Bitcoin does not amount to it being illegal. Thus, there being no law declaring its illegality, it is LEGAL.

SECOND. - If you are the victim of account hacking, you cannot file a case against the hacker because your country, through your government officials, has not acknowledged the existence of Bitcoins in the first place.

[cjmoles]

I see theft, based on the facts stated. But there are two schools of thought. Let me discuss them.

FIRST. - If you are the victim of account hacking, you can file a case against the hacker because, for all intents and purposes, your country has not spoken about how the treatment for Bitcoin will go about. In short, your government officials' acquiescence on Bitcoin does not amount to it being illegal. Thus, there being no law declaring its illegality, it is LEGAL.

SECOND. - If you are the victim of account hacking, you cannot file a case against the hacker because your country, through your government officials, has not acknowledged the existence of Bitcoins in the first place.

You're right --> if there are no laws on the books defining the crime, then it is not illegal.  Using code to "borrow" information from the public domain isn't a crime ---> bitcoin is on a public ledger ---> so it's there for the taking, from a legal perspective.  And, is it even possible to "steal" invisible objects that have no material mass or copyrighted protections?  Bitcoin is an invisible asset that we all agree exists and has value; that's all it is.  What if somebody kidnapped our invisible friends?  Would that also be a crime?  Would it be a crime if we all agreed that our invisible friends existed and were major contributors to our well being?  

There's one point here that seems to have gained a consensus. After reading everybody's responses in the thread, I've noticed something that everybody seems to agree upon.  They seem to agree that hacking is illegal.  Yet, what exactly is "hacking?"  Is looking over my shoulder and taking a snapshot of my PK then using that PK to snipe my coins "hacking."  Is stealing one of the photos off my facebook profile "hacking?"  

The questions here have a much larger scope then I believe our legislative bodies can tackle ---> good thing our networks are so robust ---> the fact that the ledgers are exposed to public attack is what makes the blockchain such a valuable technology.  With bitcoin, the person in possession of the private key is the owner by default ---> the ledger has the final say on that matter because without the ledger bitcoin fails to exist.

[Prinox2]

I'm not clear on this one point.  If somebody got a hold of my private key and moved funds from an address that I claimed on the ledger, is that against the law?  At what point could that be considered a crime?  For example, if they hacked into my machine and stolen the private key; if they sniped the pk while snooping on a public access connection; brute forced the pk into existence; or just plane snapped a shot of my qr code over my shoulder....ect  In which of those examples could I pursue prosecution for the theft of my coin?  

For me, the word "hack" already sounding illegal and should require urgent crying out to the necessary authority if such happens to your bitcoin wallet.