The Blockchain Bandit, a hacker notorious for exploiting vulnerabilities in Ethereum wallets, has re-emerged, consolidating stolen belongings after years of inactivity.
On December 30, blockchain investigator ZachXBT reported {that a} hacker had moved 51,000 ETH price roughly $172 million right into a single pockets.
These funds had been transferred from ten beforehand inactive wallets, marking the primary important hacker exercise in years.
Blockchain Bandit
Blockchain Bandit gained notoriety for exploiting weak personal keys on the Ethereum blockchain. The method concerned focusing on wallets with unsecured keys, usually set to easy sequences like “1”, “2” or “3”. These vulnerabilities allowed a hacker to siphon cryptocurrency from unsuspecting customers.
The extent of those exploits first got here to gentle in 2019, when safety researcher Adrian Bednarek found the issue throughout a routine investigation.
He recognized tons of of wallets utilizing dangerously weak keys, revealing the hacker's systematic technique of scanning for such vulnerabilities. This method, generally known as “Ethercombing”, enabled automated theft from compromised wallets.
Over two years, the hacker cracked 732 personal keys and made practically 49,000 transactions. Their exercise peaked between 2016 and 2018, when over 45,000 ETH had been stolen in simply eight months.
After this spree, the hacker's wallets remained untouched – till now.
The re-emergence of the Blockchain Bandit highlights the continuing safety challenges throughout the crypto ecosystem.
Regardless of advances in pockets know-how, Web3 Pix researcher famous that a number of cryptocurrency customers are nonetheless weak to comparable assaults as a result of weak key turbines, poor pockets practices, and the potential of human error. The researcher added:
“The Bandit's Handbook isn't old-fashioned – it's a warning.”
Moreover, the return of the Blockchain Bandit additionally shines a light-weight on a broader pattern of accelerating cryptocurrency theft. This yr, cryptocurrency losses reached $2.3 billion, which is 21% greater than the earlier yr. Specifically, cybercriminals linked to North Korea accounted for $1.34 billion of these losses.
