The Blockchain Bandit, a hacker notorious for exploiting vulnerabilities in Ethereum wallets, has re-emerged, consolidating stolen property after years of inactivity.
On December 30, blockchain investigator ZachXBT reported that the hacker transferred 51,000 ETH, price roughly $172 million, right into a single pockets.
These funds have been transferred from ten beforehand inactive wallets, marking the hacker's first important exercise in years.
The Blockchain Bandit
The Blockchain Bandit gained notoriety by exploiting weak non-public keys on the Ethereum blockchain. This method concerned focusing on wallets with insecure keys, typically set to easy sequences equivalent to “1”, “2” or “3”. These vulnerabilities allowed the hacker to siphon crypto from unsuspecting customers.
The size of those exploits was first revealed in 2019 when safety researcher Adrian Bednarek found the issue throughout a routine investigation.
It recognized a whole bunch of wallets utilizing dangerously weak keys, revealing the systematic methodology the hacker used to seek for such vulnerabilities. This strategy, generally known as “Ethercombing,” enabled automated theft from compromised wallets.
In two years, the hacker hacked 732 non-public keys and made practically 49,000 transactions. Their exercise peaked between 2016 and 2018, with over 45,000 ETH stolen in simply eight months.
Following this frenzy, the hackers' wallets have remained intact till now.
The re-emergence of the Blockchain Bandit highlights the continuing safety challenges throughout the crypto ecosystem.
Regardless of advances in pockets expertise, Web3 researcher Pix famous that a number of cryptocurrency customers are nonetheless susceptible to comparable assaults attributable to weak key mills, poor pockets practices, and the potential for human error. The researcher added:
“The Bandit Guide is just not out of date, it’s a warning.”
Moreover, the return of Blockchain Bandit additionally highlights a broader pattern of accelerating cryptocurrency theft. This 12 months, crypto losses reached $2.3 billion, a 21% enhance from the earlier 12 months. Cybercriminals linked to North Korea are notably liable for $1.34 billion of those losses.
