How I got hacked by Electrum Official Wallet [0.10 BTC]

[Joel_Jantsen]

As usual, I opened my Electrum Wallet and tried broadcasting transaction from this address (where I had my funds)

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1NJi2xFKw52PsXKBcxMwPFFVrEsJRcM5we

Now I run electrum on my Mac and have been using that address for a while. I entered the transaction details and hit send. It threw an error that the transaction cannot proceed since I'm using an outdated version of electrum which has a potential security vulnerability. It displayed a pop-up screen with links to download the updated wallet and said the links cannot be copied since I've to paste them in the browser manually. You know, when it's happening inside Electrum's official wallet, you tend to blindly trust it. I think I was wrong. I went ahead and downloaded the wallet from that link, opened it and BOOM. My money was sent to this address :

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/35412ea62a34876e38f3668a6ab0259f9d0113d04006191edeb23e5fef0fa915 [TX ID]

bc1qcla39fm0q8ka8th8ttpq0yxla30r430m4hgu3x


The awkward part was this time the electrum ICO to open the app was different


Further investigating, I found the file that I downloaded was from the website: https://goelectrum.com/#home which is an absolute rip-off of https://electrum.org/#home the official website. This is pretty much clear that this was a hack. What bothers me is how I got hacked through an official Electrum wallet without having malware or anything.

I lost good $500 folks, stay safe out there.

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[AB de Royse777]

I entered the transaction details and hit send. It threw an error that the transaction cannot proceed since I'm using an outdated version of electrum which has a potential security vulnerability. It displayed a pop-up screen with links to download the updated wallet and said the links cannot be copied since I've to paste them in the browser manually.

Damn Man!!
You missed the update scam?!

It was something we talked about few months ago.

So sorry for you lose bud.

Check this: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5090097.0

I think you were not regular in the forum and missed it.

[witcher_sense]

I added electrum's github into bookmarks and I check it every time before sending transaction. Everyone pays own price to learn safety.

[lovesmayfamilis]

I added electrum's github into bookmarks and I check it every time before sending transaction. Everyone pays own price to learn safety.

Everything is beautifully said when it does not concern itself. But losing money is always hard. Especially insulting on today's growth of Bitcoin. I understand OP and am very sorry for his loss. But in any case, I thank for the warning. And yes. You should always monitor important topics, but this is not always the case. OP do not lose heart, all the good you have ahead.

[DarkStar_]

Get rid of "Electrum Official Wallet" in the title, as it's clearly not official. Very misleading.

This is pretty much clear that this was a hack. What bothers me is how I got hacked through an official Electrum wallet without having malware or anything.

That is malware.

[mindrust]

You can't blame electrum for your own mistakes. You were careless and installed the fake wallet. That's your fault, not anybody else's.

Electrum had its own fuck ups lately but this one isn't one of them. Sorry for your loss.

[hulla]

You can't blame electrum for your own mistakes. You were careless and installed the fake wallet. That's your fault, not anybody else's.

Electrum had its own fuck ups lately but this one isn't one of them. Sorry for your loss.

Firstly, you misunderstand the OP because I don't see any mistake he made which was some sort of blame or accuse and the only mistake OP made was that he's aware of the malicious messages sent to electrum user and holding your fund in an outdated wallet is also not a good idea either. I will advice the OP to raje heart, use conc antivirus and be security conscious because Mac user are hacker target this days. Besides, OP need to remove the official wallet in this thread topic cause the wallet was not downloaded from electrum official site.

[morvillz7z]

It really sucks that he lost his funds like that but there were things he could have done to prevent it, like verifying the installation of the wallet he was forced to download.

theymos also has warning topic posted under Important Announcements: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5090097.0

There were multiple threads opened in bitcoin technical support section of users reporting loss of funds due to the same arbitrary messages with links to phishing websites.

[Quickseller]

This is pretty much clear that this was a hack. What bothers me is how I got hacked through an official Electrum wallet without having malware or anything.

That is malware.

Older versions of electrum allows electrum servers to serve clients custom error messages that include text. The electrum server that Joel_Jantsen was connected to served him the error message saying to download the fake "electrum" wallet that contain malware.

The original wallet software that Joel_Jantsen was using was not malware.

As of now, electrum servers will not connect to older versions of electrum, so they will naturally find the *real* website to download from.   

[TalkStar]

Feeling really sad after hearing about this incidents. Most probably its a phishing site attack which completed by using "Malware" IMO. I always try to be careful when I click on a redirecting link because most of the time those hackers use redirecting link strategy to fulfill their aim. Although amount wasn't too big where there was a chance to lose a big amount of fund.

Phishing site issues has been so common nowadays where every time those hackers forced by redirecting to another similar looking website. Thanks for making the post and let us know about the incident. I hope other Electrum user will be careful enough after seeing this.

[Joel_Jantsen]

You missed the update scam?!

Yes, I missed that scam link! I should have been more updated on the issue. I'm just posting this so if there are still users who are living under the cave can benefit from it.

Everything is beautifully said when it does not concern itself. But losing money is always hard. Especially insulting on today's growth of Bitcoin. I understand OP and am very sorry for his loss. But in any case, I thank for the warning. And yes. You should always monitor important topics, but this is not always the case. OP do not lose heart, all the good you have ahead.

Thanks for the kind words man. It's only after the loses we learn so I guess I gotta be more careful next time. This is sad because I'm a developer/Ethical Hacker myself and I fell for this so easily.

Get rid of "Electrum Official Wallet" in the title, as it's clearly not official. Very misleading.

It's official because the malware was infected inside of the official wallet and not something I downloaded externally. Of course, the downloaded was from outside electrum but I got linked to that from inside of electrum.

You can't blame electrum for your own mistakes. You were careless and installed the fake wallet. That's your fault, not anybody else's.

That is the hard truth yes but again electrum was the primary source of the hack.

Older versions of electrum allows electrum servers to serve clients custom error messages that include text. The electrum server that Joel_Jantsen was connected to served him the error message saying to download the fake "electrum" wallet that contain malware.

The original wallet software that Joel_Jantsen was using was not malware.

As of now, electrum servers will not connect to older versions of electrum, so they will naturally find the *real* website to download from.   

Absolutely!

@Everybody else: Thanks for your kind words. Don't trust anything without cross verifying.

[Bitcoin_Arena]

This very sad. I am truly sorry for your loss especially at this time when everybody is getting prepared to ride the next bull run after a long time in the bear market.
Is there away of reporting this site so that It can be put down at least to avoid more victims from falling into the same trap?

[TryNinja]

Is there away of reporting this site so that It can be put down at least to avoid more victims from falling into the same trap?

We could report it to their web hosting. According to WhoIs, they are hosted on netengi.com servers.

And according to NetEngi's ToS:

Prohibited Content

The following is a list of content that is not accepted in our servers and network:
– Scam/Fraudulent Websites
– Spam
– Phishing websites
[...]

Source: https://netengi.com/tos.html

I will send them a message.

[joniboini]

Get rid of "Electrum Official Wallet" in the title, as it's clearly not official. Very misleading.

It's official because the malware was infected inside of the official wallet and not something I downloaded externally. Of course, the downloaded was from outside electrum but I got linked to that from inside of electrum.

There is no malware inside your older Electrum wallet. Some malicious server replied your send message by directing you to download the fake Electrum. If you just ignore it, you won't lose any funds. This has been discussed since months ago afaik, you can scroll up on Electrum subforum to know more details about this phishing attack.

[Joel_Jantsen]

I will send them a message.

Thanks but they will be up again with the new servers in no time. To solve the problem from the root, old versions of electrum should throw an error message to update the wallet using the official link. The phishing error is thrown when we hit the send button, the update to wallet message must be displayed on opening electrum.

There is no malware inside your older Electrum wallet. Some malicious server replied your send message by directing you to download the fake Electrum. If you just ignore it, you won't lose any funds.

Yes, I figured that out.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

Get rid of "Electrum Official Wallet" in the title, as it's clearly not official. Very misleading.

It's official because the malware was infected inside of the official wallet and not something I downloaded externally. Of course, the downloaded was from outside electrum but I got linked to that from inside of electrum.

Before installing Electrum in any system I always check the signature even though I always download it from the official website: https://electrum.org/#download

Please check this tutorial if you need help in verifying signature: https://bitcoinelectrum.com/how-to-verify-your-electrum-download/

I am sorry for you lose Joel. Consider this as the price you paid for your lesson. We all were there.

[coin-investor]

After reading this I transferred all my coins to Exodus, it's not safe to use Electrum anymore, I have been reading a lot of this in the past, I just hope it will never happen to Exodus and Greenwallet, which I'm using right now, but I will remember this and only download from official source.

[bL4nkcode]

After reading this I transferred all my coins to Exodus, it's not safe to use Electrum anymore, I have been reading a lot of this in the past, I just hope it will never happen to Exodus and Greenwallet, which I'm using right now, but I will remember this and only download from official source.

You misinterpret those topics that electrum isn't safe anymore. By using any kind of wallet, the user itself is full responsible of anything might happen to his/er funds from downloading the wallet (of any kind) to making a transaction.
Electrum is one of the secured wallets besides from core, and HW IMO.
There are lots of tutorial how make transaction safe with electrum using an air gapped computer if you really want a secured environment.
While you have to be updated of any updates release by any wallet's official release. People can follow electrum on their twitter https://twitter.com/ElectrumWallet/ which they are active other than on github for updates.

To OP, yeah, its hard losing funds on such incident And hope you don't loss your cool as en ethical hacker and let his incident serve as a lesson for you to strive more on similar things.

Don't trust, Verify.

[TryNinja]

After reading this I transferred all my coins to Exodus, it's not safe to use Electrum anymore, I have been reading a lot of this in the past, I just hope it will never happen to Exodus and Greenwallet, which I'm using right now, but I will remember this and only download from official source.

It's not that Electrum isn't safe. People aren't safe.

Some guy found a small exploit on the way the client showed the error messages from the server, and they used that to make users go to a fake website and download an infected wallet. If the user has the idea on mind that only ELECTRUM.ORG is legit, he will never fall for this kind of stuff. This is more of a social engineering issue than a security issue. For now, Electrum is still pretty safe.

[Joel_Jantsen]

It's not that Electrum isn't safe. People aren't safe.

How? I literally got attacked by the malware through Electrum.. You don't really verify stuff when you're using a particular application for months right? The vulnerability that was injected was part of bad coding or not enough penetration testing or whatever. It's an open source project so I don't really expect much. My point being, it's not that I wasn't safe, I just blindly trusted a pop-up that came from within an application I was using since ages.

Some guy found a small exploit on the way the client showed the error messages from the server, and they used that to make users go to a fake website and download an infected wallet. If the user has the idea on mind that only ELECTRUM.ORG is legit, he will never fall for this kind of stuff. This is more of a social engineering issue than a security issue. For now, Electrum is still pretty safe.

It's not a small exploit if it modifies the response from the server. Verifying the domain before downloading it yes that's my fault.

I am sorry for you lose Joel. Consider this as the price you paid for your lesson. We all were there.

Thanks man! As for now, I'm not using Electrum because I'm highly skeptical such exploits will not happen in the future.