Hackers Are Trying To Break Into This Bitcoin Wallet Holding $690 Million

[zasad@]

Hackers Are Trying To Break Into This Bitcoin Wallet Holding $690 Million
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bv8k4v/hackers-are-trying-to-break-into-this-bitcoin-wallet-holding-dollar690-million

https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin/address/1HQ3Go3ggs8pFnXuHVHRytPCq5fGG8Hbhx

I'm not sure if this is a real wallet or if this article is an advertisement for RaidForums.

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[Charles-Tim]

I read about this on cointelegraph few days ago, the wallet could be real. But, it is now related to the fact that without knowing the private key of a wallet, that brute-forcing can only be a waste of time as no one can brute-force a wallet private key for now. Also, on the new, it is said that although it may be impossible to break through the wallet for now but possibly quantum computer with advance features will be able to break through in a way the private key will be revealed. Now that a recent quantum computer is used to calculate what can not be calculated in 10 years in just three minutes, this makes quantum computer to be a topic of discussion in relationship to bitcoin.

[bob123]

That's a completely worthless article not worth being mentioned.

Those "Hackers" do not hack anything. They are trying to bruteforce a password.
Thats's nothing new, wallets are being traded here all the time.

Further, no one can be sure that this wallet indeed holds the private keys. I am pretty sure that a wallet can be manipulated in such a way.
We can observe this all the time here, where people "lost their password", but in reality just bought a wallet file.


It is disappointing to see what kind of articles get published.

[FTrader]

The idea of quantum computer its there since 1981, but now we are a big step forward to make it happen, who knows..

[ryap12]

The idea of quantum computer its there since 1981, but now we are a big step forward to make it happen, who knows..

There was also a recent tweet on Twitter asking to Microsoft for a Quantum Computer. Man I cant imagine the price for 1 Quantum Computer. I it going to be a very powerful computer and will be the god of brute forcing wallets if ever hackers gets their hands to it.

[rexxarofmoknathal]

I read about this on cointelegraph few days ago, the wallet could be real. But, it is now related to the fact that without knowing the private key of a wallet, that brute-forcing can only be a waste of time as no one can brute-force a wallet private key for now. Also, on the new, it is said that although it may be impossible to break through the wallet for now but possibly quantum computer with advance features will be able to break through in a way the private key will be revealed. Now that a recent quantum computer is used to calculate what can not be calculated in 10 years in just three minutes, this makes quantum computer to be a topic of discussion in relationship to bitcoin.

Brute-forcing to crack the private key isn't going to work. You need quantum computers for this, and if the rumour is true then although it may seem impossible to get the private keys for now in the near future this might well become a probability.

Given the stake is so high, several individual might pull together and split the reward, after all the amount is high enough to lead to different team formations alining up to the same goal.

[bob123]

I it going to be a very powerful computer and will be the god of brute forcing wallets if ever hackers gets their hands to it.

Brute-forcing to crack the private key isn't going to work. You need quantum computers for this, and if the rumour is true then although it may seem impossible to get the private keys for now in the near future this might well become a probability.

I'd highly recommend you both to actually read about quantum computers and what they can achieve.
They are not magic machines.

There are quantum algorithms which do decrease the search space for specific mathematical problems, yes.
But they can not just easily crack and bruteforce everything.

This is dangerous sciolism being spread by unaware people.

[NotATether]

These hackers out of all people should know that brute-forcing a wallet password is well near impossible, and so all they do when they find such files is sell them for a few thousand bucks to others who want to break it. So the hackers just have to find encypted wallet.dat files around the web, maybe even fake the balance like the article stated, and get a revenue stream from selling those wallets.

The people buying those wallets and trying to break it open are operating at a loss, they lose not only the money needed to buy access the wallet but also the elecricity expenses from running the rig, not to mention that since access to the wallet is being sold (the seller is under no obligaion to delete his copy), someone else could crack it while he's brute forcing it and poof: there goes the asset they payed for. Triple loss for them.

But like bob123 said this story isn't significant at all. These things happen all the time.

The idea of quantum computer its there since 1981, but now we are a big step forward to make it happen, who knows..

There was also a recent tweet on Twitter asking to Microsoft for a Quantum Computer. Man I cant imagine the price for 1 Quantum Computer. I it going to be a very powerful computer and will be the god of brute forcing wallets if ever hackers gets their hands to it.

Do you guys really think hackers will be allowed legitimate access to quantum computers?

[crwth]

I'm not sure if this is a real wallet or if this article is an advertisement for RaidForums.

I'm pretty sure it's a genuine address, I checked it in an explorer. And I don't think it's an advertisement for the forum; it's only mentioned once. And Bitcointalk is discussed as well.

How can one be so sure that it's for that wallet, though? Just because it's posted like that? It can be a prank or something.  

[zasad@]

That's a completely worthless article not worth being mentioned.

Those "Hackers" do not hack anything. They are trying to bruteforce a password.
Thats's nothing new, wallets are being traded here all the time.

Further, no one can be sure that this wallet indeed holds the private keys. I am pretty sure that a wallet can be manipulated in such a way.
We can observe this all the time here, where people "lost their password", but in reality just bought a wallet file.


It is disappointing to see what kind of articles get published.

The article may not be very useful, but it talks about a market where many wallet.dat are sold.
If it is not forbidden to trade wallets on this forum, then let buyers know that before them hundreds or thousands of users with large computing power tried to crack the password before them.
Perhaps experienced users will not be interested in this topic, but beginners will constantly waste their time and money.

[bob123]

If it is not forbidden to trade wallets on this forum, then let buyers know that before them hundreds or thousands of users with large computing power tried to crack the password before them.

It is not like every wallet sold is a legit wallet with a forgot password.
Those wallet files are being faked to display a large sum of BTC.

There simply is no password which will give the user access to those shown BTC.

Of course that's now only referring to the wallet sales on this (or other) forums and not on the rare cases where someone actually indeed lost the password and now sells this wallet file.
Unfortunately a lot of people are getting scammed by this.

[hatshepsut93]

Selling an encrypted wallet with supposedly high amount of coins is a very old scam, from time to time it gets posted on this forum too. The journalists just proved their illiteracy, with this kind of work they might as well start advertising Bitcoin doubling scams with a nice headline "kind strangers offer Bitcoiners to double their coins for free!".

[zasad@]

But would anyone sell their wallet with a forgotten password even with 10 bitcoins for $ 20 or $ 100?
All that I have seen is either stolen wallets to which it is impossible to find a password, or fake, but in fact the user will still lose his time and money.

[ReiMomo]

~snip~
That's a completely worthless article not worth being mentioned.

Exactly right, there are too many scenarios like this, and the fact I saw many threads that they are offering service like cracking key and pass through wallet.dat, but the fact that it is impossible to hack an encrypted wallet if that was I'm not mistaken but this is relatively incident.

The article is unclear information, even the author didn't know if that has come from the wallet.dat file or just a fake one.

Scammers these days will also struggle of exchanging their scammed crypto to a centralized exchange because once that is linked as a scam wallet. It can be tracked by bitcoin scam tracking services.

[Fundamentals Of]

There must always be ongoing attempts to break into very rich Bitcoin wallets. This is not big news already. For all I know, there must be hackers or online robbers trying to break into exchange wallets, individual wallets, and even wallets of famous Bitcoin personalities including Satoshi. Robbers gonna rob.

[Lucius]

Those wallet files are being faked to display a large sum of BTC.

And they say it's nothing complicated (I mean the procedure) so obviously someone played around a bit and made a story out of nothing. And even if the wallet is real, any slightly more complicated password makes it virtually impenetrable for today's computers. But if some hackers really think there's something there, let them just play with that crypto wallet - they'll have less time for some other things, like hacking a crypto exchanges or distributing crypto malware.

"It's possible to doctor a Bitcoin wallet.dat file to make it seem like it contains a high balance," said the person who runs Wallet Recovery Services, a service that decrypts wallets with lost passwords for a fee, who goes by Dave Bitcoin. "The wallet file contains pairs of public key & encrypted private key of the addresses it controls. So one could modify the file in a binary editor and change the public key of one of the address pairs to that of a high value BTC address."

[Twentyonepaylots]

I it going to be a very powerful computer and will be the god of brute forcing wallets if ever hackers gets their hands to it.

Brute-forcing to crack the private key isn't going to work. You need quantum computers for this, and if the rumour is true then although it may seem impossible to get the private keys for now in the near future this might well become a probability.

I'd highly recommend you both to actually read about quantum computers and what they can achieve.
They are not magic machines.

People praising quantum computer as if it needs a second to break cryptography haha

There are quantum algorithms which do decrease the search space for specific mathematical problems, yes.
But they can not just easily crack and bruteforce everything.

Theoretically, quantum computer can break bitcoin blockchain if it can derive the private key in less than 5 minutes, which I don't think we computer scientists can't do in the next 5 to 10 years.

This is dangerous sciolism being spread by unaware people.

Indeed.

[Becky666]

There must always be ongoing attempts to break into very rich Bitcoin wallets.

And the message to them is: let them try harder because it's nearly impossible for any machine to break Bitcoin wallet. Sometimes when the issue of breaking into wallet arise many get negative vibes, the quantum computers to my understanding can take years before this can be a reality(if only Satoshi allows it to happen). Those algorithms aren't just what can break without a heavy price paid, like what can be done before a transaction can be reverse(connect all nodes). Maybe this can be actualize when all Bitcoin might have been mined IMO.

[BrewMaster]

calling people who are trying to brute force a private key by having only the address "hackers" is an insult to hackers and computer programmers and to math... they are just newbies who have no understanding of cryptography nor size of numbers.
if there were even a teeny tiny chance of something like this happening, bitcoin and a lot of other things on the internet including banking system would have died.

of course this lack of knowledge is also being abused by a different type of scammers selling them fake wallet files, fake or even malicious programs to run,...

[eaLiTy]

I'm pretty sure it's a genuine address, I checked it in an explorer. And I don't think it's an advertisement for the forum; it's only mentioned once. And Bitcointalk is discussed as well.

The wallet mentioned is genuine and the bulk number of coins moved into the wallet around the Mt Gox era and the wallet is still active and getting dust amount for a long time and the recent one was this August.

There is an old thread in speculation that mentions this address

How can one be so sure that it's for that wallet, though? Just because it's posted like that? It can be a prank or something.  

As mentioned in the article it is possible that scammers are trying to sell the DAT file editing to look like the hot wallet.