Researchers regain access to 11-year-old crypto wallet, recover $3 million worth of BTC

Two cybersecurity researchers have helped an anonymous crypto user recover 43.6 bitcoins (BTC) he lost 11 years ago after losing access to the wallet containing the assets.

According to a YouTube video detailing the incident, researcher Joe Grand and his friend Bruno hacked the time to reverse engineer the password generator used to create the password for the wallet containing the BTC. Although the process was rigorous, it helped them regain access to the wallet and retrieve their lost coins.

Recovery of 11-year Wallet access

The anonymous crypto user, named Michael, told Grand and Bruno that he set up the wallet sometime in 2013 and used RoboForm to generate his one-time password. However, for security reasons, he decided to store the password in an encrypted file instead of RoboForm.

“At the time, I was very paranoid about my safety,” Michael testified, revealing that the stash was worth about $5,300 at the time. Unfortunately, the encrypted file containing Michael’s password got corrupted at some point and he lost access to the wallet.

Michael first contacted Grand in 2022, but was rejected. The owner of the bitcoin persisted and tried again in June 2023. This time, he got Grand’s attention and they began the process of recovering the assets.

Grand and Bruno discovered that RoboForm had a vulnerability in its random number generator, which connected each generated password to a date and time it was created on a user’s computer. Although the bug was fixed in 2015, the duo reasoned that it must have affected all passwords created before that.

HODLing until BTC hits $100,000

Michael was tasked with remembering the date he created the password, and while the feat seemed difficult, researchers learned that he moved the bitcoins to his wallet on April 13, 2013. They used parameters of time and continued to try hundreds of passwords until they discovered the correct one, created on May 15, 2013.

Upon discovering the correct password, they accessed the wallet and recovered the bitcoins. Michael gave some of the storage to Grand and Bruno when BTC was around $38,000, and when the asset rose to $62,000, he sold some for himself. He currently has 30 BTC worth approximately $2 million left, and intends to hold onto it until the asset is worth $100,000.

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