My wallet is stolen! (10 BTC)

[moriartybitcoin]

Interesting.

I run an electrum wallet on my laptop and keep 10-25 coins on it at all times for daily transactions. 

I'm online all day, and thus my electrum is online too.  I'd be pretty surprised to wake up and find my coins gone.

here's my address: 1DDWEQM11uMUKiqpGEWvBT2at3CjCw3Vra

Hack away!

So I'm guessing this guy probably got a RAT (remote access terminal) installed on his laptop by clicking on a link in an email or downloading an infected wallet client.

[itod]

You are screwed for sure. Bitcoin is very scary because you can lose it instantly and have no way of getting it back. Never use simple passwords. What I do is type something random and encrypt it into a sha256 string and just use that as a password, written down on a piece of paper on my desk.

This is a very, very bad idea. Humans are notoriously bad at generating randomness. What makes you think that something "random" you type has enough entropy? Of course it depends if you've used digits, uppercase letters, special chars, etc, but even if you've covered all that it's not even close to entropy you get from solid RNG. In both cases, you end down with some non-memorizable string on the piece of paper, so if that's the case - why not use some good source of randomness instead of typing?

[ArticMine]

Interesting.

I run an electrum wallet on my laptop and keep 10-25 coins on it at all times for daily transactions. 

I'm online all day, and thus my electrum is online too.  I'd be pretty surprised to wake up and find my coins gone.

here's my address: 1DDWEQM11uMUKiqpGEWvBT2at3CjCw3Vra

Hack away!

So I'm guessing this guy probably got a RAT (remote access terminal) installed on his laptop by clicking on a link in an email or downloading an infected wallet client.

My theory: He was running Microsoft Windows.

[abercrombie]

I'd be pretty surprised to wake up and find my coins gone.

here's my address: 1DDWEQM11uMUKiqpGEWvBT2at3CjCw3Vra

Hack away!

That address got emptied today, Final Balance   $ 0.00.  

[TRex95]

Interesting.

I run an electrum wallet on my laptop and keep 10-25 coins on it at all times for daily transactions. 

I'm online all day, and thus my electrum is online too.  I'd be pretty surprised to wake up and find my coins gone.

here's my address: 1DDWEQM11uMUKiqpGEWvBT2at3CjCw3Vra

Hack away!

So I'm guessing this guy probably got a RAT (remote access terminal) installed on his laptop by clicking on a link in an email or downloading an infected wallet client.

There is really very little that can be done with just a public address and a forum username.

The best way to keep your bitcoin safe is probably to make it little known that you own/control a lot of bitcoin. This is better then any security procedure or even the best password.

[hibr3d]

Have you already find out anything about the scammer?

[williamj2543]

I'd be pretty surprised to wake up and find my coins gone.

here's my address: 1DDWEQM11uMUKiqpGEWvBT2at3CjCw3Vra

Hack away!

That address got emptied today, Final Balance   $ 0.00.  

Wow is the 1DDWEQM11uMUKiqpGEWvBT2at3CjCw3Vra guy trolling or did someone actually hack him. Damn that would be pretty funny, but I'd feel bad for the guy. My tip is to just not have a lot of activity on the internet and never use that address anywhere. If the address is nowhere on the internet, there is almost no chance that someone would stumble upon it randomly, finding the balance of it, and then chances are he won't try to steal it, because he would still need a lot more information. Also if you are very active on the internet, like if your IP address is associated with you, your username on the forum is on many websites, and people know the address is associated with that username, they have a lot larger chances of stealing your BTC.

[btcguys]

I do not think creating wallet.dat is safe. I have a tutorial on how to create a true paper wallet. Can someone please help me import here?
here is the link: http://btcguys.us/blog/how-to-create-bitcoin-paper-wallet-tutorial

[dariuss]

what the fuck just happened. I thought cold wallets are safe..

[Buffer Overflow]

what the fuck just happened. I thought cold wallets are safe..

They are. This wasn't a cold wallet.

[dariuss]

what the fuck just happened. I thought cold wallets are safe..

They are. This wasn't a cold wallet.

but he mentions he stored offline wallet?

[Yuki1988]

what the fuck just happened. I thought cold wallets are safe..

They are. This wasn't a cold wallet.

but he mentions he stored offline wallet?

In fact, OP said "My backup wallet is on usb flash in safe place."

And he misunderstood the term "offline wallet".

The offline wallet is "Bitcoin Core"

To OP, the most possible reason IMO is that your machine is still connected to the Internet (hot wallet) and there is malware on your machine.

[Yuki1988]

There have been lots of stolen coins these days i can see a thread created by klee which he lost about 1700BTC and thats more than 50x to yours and right now he still haven't got it back.

Klee's wallet wasn't offline or secure.

True but he was able to get some back from the hacker and now has legal options since Bitmixer has openly aknowledged they laundered the stolen funds and refuse to give information.

So the main lesson here is dont put into BTC what you can't afford to lose.  I haven't heard of any BTC theives being brought to justice, so for now beware of any way of storing your BTC.

On another note, Coinbase does have a new "vault" storage feature which delays withdrawals and requires multiple confirmations that you are in fact making the withdrawal.  Sounds like a good idea for long term storage!

IMO, the main lesson from all these hacks and thefts is that you should make sure you really store your bitcoin in a safe way (use cold wallet or paper wallet, and make backups).
It maybe a little bit troublesome, but if you have a considerable amount of bitcoin, it definitely deserves the effort to make your bitcoin safe.

[Buffer Overflow]

The correct way is to install a fresh OS (such as Linux) onto a drive, install Bitcoin armory, backup wallet at multiple places (offline places of course.) Once backed up, coins can be transfered to wallet. Optionally, you can then properly erase the drive leaving only the backups.

*At no point was the machine connected to the internet.*

This is a cold offline wallet.

[btcguys]

it is best to used a computer that will never go online and also make sure to have internet security software such as Bit Defender or Kaspersky

[forever21]

so all in all dont use offline wallet if you dont know how to protect it use VM to install anything suspicious and then you must have a computer which is not using for browsing watching porn etc etc if you have a 1998 pc then thats a good one to store your btc but then some good hacker can hack your pc even if its not online so basically there is no safe place on earth to hide your btc so its up to you on how to protect it

[btcguys]

That is not true forever21. I believe that OP used a wallet.dat file and it was stored on his PC that was connected to the internet. In addition, it is likely that OP did not encrypt wallet.dat file.

You may check my guide in the first post to the OP in order to learn how to create a paper wallet.

[forever21]

That is not true forever21. I believe that OP used a wallet.dat file and it was stored on his PC that was connected to the internet. In addition, it is likely that OP did not encrypt wallet.dat file.

You may check my guide in the first post to the OP in order to learn how to create a paper wallet.

thats why i said that never used a computer which is using for browsing much better to used your old man's pc and dont connect it to the internet its more safe than laptops or some online desktop

[cech4204a]

Well if that wallet was created offline and held offline all the time and only you had access to your wallet, than i don't understand how somebody could hack your wallet. Are you sure that only you had access to it? Where did you keep your cold wallet?

[williamj2543]

it is best to used a computer that will never go online and also make sure to have internet security software such as Bit Defender or Kaspersky

Don't even use a computer. Use a paper wallet generated offline. That is the safest.