In a move straight out of a crypto heist movie, two hackers have pulled off the unthinkable: cracking a forgotten Bitcoin wallet and recovering about $3 million worth of BTC-USD. Back in 2013, an alias known only as “Michael” secured his Bitcoin stash in a password-protected wallet.
Fast forward a decade, and a corrupted file locked Michael out of his own digital fortune. His paranoia about hacks led him to avoid storing the password, sealing his fate—or so it seemed.
Enter Joe Grand, a.k.a. “Kingpin,” an electrical engineer and hardware hacker with a knack for unlocking digital vaults. Famous for recovering $2 million from a forgotten Trezor wallet in 2022, Grand became the go-to guy for lost crypto recoveries. Michael, desperate to reclaim his Bitcoin, reached out to Grand.
Initially, Grand passed on the job, citing the complexities of software-based wallets. But Michael’s persistence paid off, and by June, Grand teamed up with Bruno, a fellow hacker from Germany, to tackle the challenge.
Cracking the Code
Months of reverse engineering revealed a critical flaw in the RoboForm password manager’s pseudo-random number generator. This flaw tied generated passwords to the date and time on the user’s computer, making them predictable.
Michael couldn’t remember the exact date he generated the password but knew the Bitcoin first hit the wallet on April 14, 2013. Using this info, Grand and Bruno set RoboForm to generate passwords within that timeframe.
After numerous attempts and tweaks, they hit the jackpot on November 15, 2023. The 20-character password generated on May 15, 2013, unlocked Michael’s long-lost treasure.
While Michael basked in his rediscovered wealth, selling a portion of his 30 BTC stash now worth $3 million, this recovery raised questions about password security. RoboForm’s flaw, supposedly fixed in 2015, left older passwords vulnerable. Grand emphasized the need for better security in newer versions to prevent similar incidents.
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According to TipRanks’ Summary of Technical Indicators, Bitcoin is a Buy.
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