Can offline wallets ever be hacked?

[sokani]

Until now a warning message from bitcoin forum was "Don't keep Your Money in Online Accounts/wallets" but it's sad to hear that a bitcoin developer's account was hacked and $3.6M(200BTC) assets were hacked from his online and offline wallets.  has been  So the only question we all have is how a hacker can hack or gain access to his offline wallet security password.

Yes... offline wallet can be hacked. For stance, the owner might forget his/her access code and seek the services of an hacker like the case of Joe Grank who hacked Trezor one wallet and recovered about $2million value in Theta. You can read it up here:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/engineer-hacks-trezor-wallet-recovers-2m-in-lost-crypto/amp

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[NeuroticFish]

Yes... offline wallet can be hacked. For stance, the owner might forget his/her access code and seek the services of an hacker like the case of Joe Grank who hacked Trezor one wallet and recovered about $2million value in Theta. You can read it up here:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/engineer-hacks-trezor-wallet-recovers-2m-in-lost-crypto/amp

It worth mentioning that he had physical access to that old Trezor and also the vulnerability he managed to exploit was fixed since then by Trezor.
You know, if a thief manages steal your cold storage and then manages to steal your coins off it... it's not really considered a vulnerability of the cold storage...

[Leviathan.007]

Until now a warning message from bitcoin forum was "Don't keep Your Money in Online Accounts/wallets" but it's sad to hear that a bitcoin developer's account was hacked and $3.6M(200BTC) assets were hacked from his online and offline wallets.  has been  So the only question we all have is how a hacker can hack or gain access to his offline wallet security password.



Bitcoin core developer Luke Dashjr lost Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) his offine and Online Accounts/ wallets and lost more than 200BTC.

Now my question is how a big bitcoin developer like him lost access to his offline wallet.  So what are the risks of using offline wallets?

@LukeDashjr tweet: https://twitter.com/LukeDashjr/status/1609613748364509184?s=19
CryptoGlobe

That's clear to everyone that online wallets are vulnerable and these are not safe for holding huge amounts of bitcoins for the long term but on the other hand it's not just a thing to say that offline wallets are completely safe and these wallets cannot be hacked because nothing is impossible to do. However and regardless of that, using online wallets for a huge amount of bitcoin is always recommended for everyone to hold bitcoin on it.

[pixie85]

Can offline wallet be hacked the answer is yes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT9y-KQbqi4

 So what are the risks of using offline wallets? there is always the risk the biggest risk is we sometimes forget about the pin  like the video I showed you above and offline wallet is pretty much safe than online wallet since online hack its happen all the time

This is not a normal situation where someone spends days soldering and probing your hardware wallet to get your coins out.

When your wallet gets stolen you should use the seed to gain access and move the coins to another address. Judging by the amount of hardware and software that is needed to perform this attack you should have more than enough time.

You could say it's possible to guess someone's password, but how much time is this going to take? Many people have simple wallet passwords so if you get their wallet file you can try a bruteforce attack.
The same can be said about a wallet that belongs to a dev. It's important to keep wallets with as much money as he had offline or at least on a separate machine that has its own firewall.

Ity's easy to compromise your computer by downloading stuff from the Internet especially from hacking forums. Game cheats and cracked software are often spiked with malware.

[South Park]

This is a sad case, if even the bitcoin developers can lose their btc, what can we say about ordinary users. It seems to me that until the issue of security and simplicity is resolved, which even a beginner can master, the widespread adoption of bitcoin will be delayed. There are alternatives, like hardware and other wallets, but still, the incident is alarming.

For me, here's what else looks strange. Luke Dashjr is not a stupid person, but for some reason he kept such a large amount of btc in one wallet. What about the famous diversification? Then part of btc could be preserved, and not in such a way that the entire balance was devastated as it is now. I sympathize with him and this is a bitter example for others to be able to keep the wallet safe.

This is not going to be easy to solve as we are supposed to be our own banks, and as such how secure our coins are is entirely up to us to decide, even if he was a developer for what we know it does not seem as if his approach to the security of his coins was appropriate, and while it may seem incredible that someone which has such a deep knowledge about bitcoin can make this kind of mistake, it is not rare for humans to become so familiar and comfortable with a situation to the point they drop their guard to very dangerous levels.

[Kelvinid]

Well, nothing is 100% safe in crypto wallets because at the moment you use offline wallets and link to online wallets, hacks can possibly happen. If you want to keep it safe 100% then keep it offline forever but I don't think that really is going to happen.  But all I can say is that - hacking only happens to us when we are too careless, especially from clicking unknown links send to us via email or social media.

Ultimately, there is no one wallet solution that is 100% unhackable; however, hardware wallets coupled with extra security precautions, security features and best practices offer a strong solution.
https://halborn.com/can-hardware-wallets-be-hacked/

[dansus021]

This is not a normal situation where someone spends days soldering and probing your hardware wallet to get your coins out.

When your wallet gets stolen you should use the seed to gain access and move the coins to another address. Judging by the amount of hardware and software that is needed to perform this attack you should have more than enough time.

Yep  this the case when a thief know for what they stealing for they will do soldering and doing with bunch of software, that is I said that using hardware wallet is the best currently, I also have another idea that we need put the seed key in a bank so we can only opened but use new address new key and use as store not send

[Darker45]

The way I understand it, offline wallets, for as long as they remain offline, can't be hacked. But I guess we have to take note that our coins are not kept in those offline wallets such that if those wallets are destroyed or lost, our coins are also lost. Our coins are actually stored in the blockchain. And there are information that could give anybody access to those coins without necessarily getting access to those wallets. Again, your coins are in the blockchain, not in those offline wallets. So, if your offline wallet is kept offline all the time and yet you're keeping your seed phrase in a device that goes online every now and then, for example, in a phone, laptop, PC, even cloud storage, then that offline wallet is pointless.

[wiss19]

This is why most of my money is in Binance, people act as if Binance is hackable and their own wallets are not and that makes me laugh so much. Yeah, sure if you have 500 bucks then no hacker will work hard to hack into your offline wallet, the effort required would be a lot more than the reward they would get and that is why it is not going to be so easy.

But at the end of the day, it is not going to be as easy as possible and why would they do that for low amounts. But, same goes with Binance too, if you have a small amount there then it would be fine, Binance won't be hacked into like that, and it will be safe there and I have never faced a problem there at all.

[ringgo96]

In storing crypto assets both bitcoin and altcoins certainly have their own weaknesses in every wallet that we use, both online and online wallets, so in this case we as big investors are indeed very uncomfortable when we hear news like this because it can threaten the aser we have, but we always try to apply high security as set in a wallet that we use never make the slightest mistake because  The hackers always monitor the mistakes we make to get the assets we have.

[tygeade]

This is why most of my money is in Binance, people act as if Binance is hackable and their own wallets are not and that makes me laugh so much. Yeah, sure if you have 500 bucks then no hacker will work hard to hack into your offline wallet, the effort required would be a lot more than the reward they would get and that is why it is not going to be so easy.

But at the end of the day, it is not going to be as easy as possible and why would they do that for low amounts. But, same goes with Binance too, if you have a small amount there then it would be fine, Binance won't be hacked into like that, and it will be safe there and I have never faced a problem there at all.

But, it is not looking great if we all put our money in same places all the time. It's just not easy to understand why centralization gradually happened, and it was organically made as well and not like anything regulation needed. Most of the bitcoins and anything of worth in crypto ended up in either binance or coinbase, a few other exchanges too but that's mainly it, millions and millions there.

There are some rich people with 100k+ bitcoins as well, so once again 1% have all the money. I am not saying they own it, binance and coinbase doesn't own it, but its still there, making it centralized and giving them power.

[laurenB7742]

This is why most of my money is in Binance, people act as if Binance is hackable and their own wallets are not and that makes me laugh so much. Yeah, sure if you have 500 bucks then no hacker will work hard to hack into your offline wallet, the effort required would be a lot more than the reward they would get and that is why it is not going to be so easy.

But at the end of the day, it is not going to be as easy as possible and why would they do that for low amounts. But, same goes with Binance too, if you have a small amount there then it would be fine, Binance won't be hacked into like that, and it will be safe there and I have never faced a problem there at all.

In terms of security, I don't think it is safer to hold our bitcoin in cold or non-custodial wallets than it is for us to leave our bitcoin on exchanges, about how secure binance is, I also believe it's safe. It's not as vulnerable as many people say, those people are just trying to smear binance with no proof at all. But leaving your bitcoins on exchanges comes with the increased risk that they could go bankrupt or freeze your assets without telling you the reason. Those are the risks that I am afraid to leave bitcoin on the exchange, not because of their poor security.

[Outhue]

How can offline wallet get compromised? This is confusing, unless this person backup the phrase on his computer or writes down the phrase where people can easily see, could also be an inside job maybe someone very close, this is the first time of hearing someone lose assets stored on an offline wallet.

[stadus]

How can offline wallet get compromised? This is confusing, unless this person backup the phrase on his computer or writes down the phrase where people can easily see, could also be an inside job maybe someone very close, this is the first time of hearing someone lose assets stored on an offline wallet.

Well, I have no experience of getting hacked but I say you are right - it can be possible with the help of other devices leading hackers to steal money.
 - computer used
 - use of public connections to access our wallet
 - clicking unknown links

it was seldom to hear of this kind of issue but we can't underestimate hackers now, they are getting smarter than before because of technology upgrades. 

[Yatsan]

How can offline wallet get compromised? This is confusing, unless this person backup the phrase on his computer or writes down the phrase where people can easily see, could also be an inside job maybe someone very close, this is the first time of hearing someone lose assets stored on an offline wallet.

Well, I have no experience of getting hacked but I say you are right - it can be possible with the help of other devices leading hackers to steal money.
 - computer used
 - use of public connections to access our wallet
 - clicking unknown links

it was seldom to hear of this kind of issue but we can't underestimate hackers now, they are getting smarter than before because of technology upgrades. 

Anything's possible especially if negligence would serve a role against the user. Hacking means getting an access into something without permission and acknowledgement. If ever your hardware wallet will be accessed by other people, for sure risk of being hacked would be present as well. The only advantage of hardware wallet over online is being somehow in less risk to ohising sites and other malwares. But that won't change the fact that there would be possibilities of losing assets from a hardware wallet if the user won't take extra caution of their actions. It is money we are talking about in the first place and putting more security into it, is needless to say.

[pixie85]

This is not a normal situation where someone spends days soldering and probing your hardware wallet to get your coins out.

When your wallet gets stolen you should use the seed to gain access and move the coins to another address. Judging by the amount of hardware and software that is needed to perform this attack you should have more than enough time.

Yep  this the case when a thief know for what they stealing for they will do soldering and doing with bunch of software, that is I said that using hardware wallet is the best currently, I also have another idea that we need put the seed key in a bank so we can only opened but use new address new key and use as store not send

That's not a bad choice as long as the key is encrypted. You wouldn't want a thief who robs the bank to easily get into your life savings.

It's enough if the encryption is good enough to give you a few days in case something happens and someone steals it, but then comes a thought: why choose a bank when you can put the same encrypted file in a watertight enclosure and hide it behind a tile in the basement or in a brick wall, or whatever.

Nobody is going to demolish your house looking for your seed and if they do it's going to cause so much chaos and take so much time that you'll know about it and move the money.

[serjent05]

Until now a warning message from bitcoin forum was "Don't keep Your Money in Online Accounts/wallets" but it's sad to hear that a bitcoin developer's account was hacked and $3.6M(200BTC) assets were hacked from his online and offline wallets.  has been  So the only question we all have is how a hacker can hack or gain access to his offline wallet security password.



Bitcoin core developer Luke Dashjr lost Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) his offine and Online Accounts/ wallets and lost more than 200BTC.

Now my question is how a big bitcoin developer like him lost access to his offline wallet.  So what are the risks of using offline wallets?

@LukeDashjr tweet: https://twitter.com/LukeDashjr/status/1609613748364509184?s=19
CryptoGlobe

The Bitcoin developer becomes careless.  He overlooked the possibility of his computer files being compromised when his server was infected by a trojan or malware.  I don't recall that the dev has lost his access to his offline wallet but the attacker getting access to his wallets.  There is nothing more to say here than the developer become careless since I believe he knows how to secure his wallet very well.

[teosanru]

Until now a warning message from bitcoin forum was "Don't keep Your Money in Online Accounts/wallets" but it's sad to hear that a bitcoin developer's account was hacked and $3.6M(200BTC) assets were hacked from his online and offline wallets.  has been  So the only question we all have is how a hacker can hack or gain access to his offline wallet security password.



Bitcoin core developer Luke Dashjr lost Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) his offine and Online Accounts/ wallets and lost more than 200BTC.

Now my question is how a big bitcoin developer like him lost access to his offline wallet.  So what are the risks of using offline wallets?

@LukeDashjr tweet: https://twitter.com/LukeDashjr/status/1609613748364509184?s=19
CryptoGlobe

I think if you have linked your offline wallet in someway to an online hot wallet it can be hacked. Also i believe if you get caught into some phishing while accessing your offline wallet is also a chance that it can be hacked. Not to forget another simple way hackers can hack it is by sending you a counterfeit or hacked hardware wallet in the first place not sure this was the case in mentioned tweet here.

[Casdinyard]

There are numerous instances a coldcwallet could still get hacked of its access and funds. For example. Trojan and certain types of malware exist solely to make money out of the data they collect. That being said. What happened to him/her is that he may have unknowingly downloadwd the file in the past or so. And the virus's journey towards the millions of dollar to be stolen starts here, when the dev pressed on it and unknowingly activated the file.

Bottomline, cold wallets can be pryed and hacked, it is just rare and doesn't always happen.

[abel1337]

I always believe that everything can be hacked no matter how tight the security is but yeah the tighter the security is the harder it is to be hacked by someone. Hackers are using different methods and those elite hackers are using their own ways or creating new method of hacking into someone. There are some videos on youtube or stories on articles that a offline wallet can been hacked this is why we should always keep lowkey on our assets to avoid being targeted especially if we are holding a huge amount of value in our wallets. We can never be sure about our security even if we are using the most secured wallet. But it is always advisable to use non-custodial wallet since it is proven that it offers a great amount of security.