Trying to take money

[gerodoth]

Bitcoin Client Software and Version Number: electrum 4.0.0
Operating System: win 10
System Hardware Specs: thinkpad laptop
Description of Problem: i transferred bitcoins for magnatus.com for they put me usd on my paypal account. did it asap when they give me address for transfer. now they say address they give me differs from that i must put btc on. now my payment just stuck somewhere and as they say no one use it. addres where i put it all
Any Related Addresses: bc1qcygs9dl4pqw6atc4yqudrzd76p3r9cp6xp2kny
Any Related Transaction IDs: 06ce20e067dbb54c8ae1dfff06f2e9e63bc1f11a023803ca7e81b89edf95f34b
Screenshot of the problem: idk what to put there
Log Files from the Bitcoin Client: idk how to get them.

Hi there, sorry for mistakes, not my native language.

[1714910903]

1714910903

[1714910903]

1714910903

[1714910903]

1714910903

[ranochigo]

Where did you get your Electrum client from? The current version is only 3.3.8 and it is nowhere near 4.0.0 yet. Are you certain that you copied that address correctly? If the address differs from the one that you saw on their website, then it's your fault and there's nothing that they can do. And if that's the case, then you could possibly be a victim of clipboard malware.

[gerodoth]

gosh, electrum proposed to update themselve, i figured out that this version don't exist just now. now i don't remember address while paying. about a day passed when they said that they did not receive my payment.
thank you, i found this post
https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/5183
looks like i lost everything. strange that it's electrum themselves wanted me to upgrade "old version" which i did'nt touch 11 month before, so it was seemed legit.
no one can help me, right?

[o_e_l_e_o]

Electrum 4.0.0 is malware. You have lost your coins.

The real Electrum, which you should only ever download from https://electrum.org/#download and no other site, is at version 3.3.8. You should also always verify your download before installing it by following one of the following guides:
https://bitcoinelectrum.com/how-to-verify-your-electrum-download/
https://bitzuma.com/posts/how-to-verify-an-electrum-download-on-windows/
https://bitzuma.com/posts/how-to-verify-an-electrum-download-on-mac/

The version you have downloaded from a fake site immediately transfers all your coins out to the attackers' address (bc1qcygs9dl4pqw6atc4yqudrzd76p3r9cp6xp2kny). As bitcoin is irreversible, I'm afraid you cannot recover your coins.

strange that it's electrum themselves wanted me to upgrade "old version" which i did'nt touch 11 month before, so it was seemed legit.

It wasn't Electrum that gave you the message to update. Your Electrum client randomly selected a server which is owned by the attackers, and it pushed a notification to your Electrum directing you to a malicious download link. Just like you should never follow links to downloads from emails, you should never do so from other software.

no one can help me, right?

Unfortunately not. You just have to chalk it up as an expensive lesson.

[gerodoth]

thanks a lot, guys, it was not about money, it was about understanding what's happened. if threads on this forum needs to be locked - question is answered.

[o_e_l_e_o]

it was about understanding what's happened.

You can read more about the vulnerability here: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/4968

Essentially, versions of Electrum prior to 3.3.4 contained a feature which allowed a server to send a message to connected users in the event of there being an error with their transaction. Attackers used this to their advantage, hijacked the error message, and turned it in to the fake "Update Required" message you saw, with a link to a fake Electrum website containing their malicious version of Electrum to be downloaded. Lots of people have fallen victim to this scam, and you certainly won't be the last. This has been patched since version 3.3.4 so it is no longer possible, but many users are still using older version of Electrum, and older versions are still bundled in many packages such as Linux distros.

As I mentioned above, to avoid this you should only ever download from https://electrum.org/#download or https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum, and verify your download before installing.