Topic: My funds have been stolen! - page 2. (Read 1869 times)

I see that most probably did not understand what happened ... There was no double spending here !!! I received the funds at my BTC address (where they were still available for 30 minutes after posting). Wanting to make a payment to the stock exchange -> I realized that these measures have already been taken! There was no double spend attack!

Well i have seen it before, so that might be so. Even having the system secured and updated is not safe enough. Airgap might help your company server, but you are taking a giant risk. There are zero day exploits, there are "private" exploits now known by few discoverers but kept secret until needed. Usually those are not seen for widespread attacks, but can for targeted attacks. OP might have drawn someone's attention.

This is the fundamental problem of "security by obscurity". By hiding the code, is not like exploits don't exist, they do. And worst of it is they remain hidden for much longer than with open source.

It might be something simple like you say, but its always a good moment to call everyone's attention. Do not fool yourself thinking a well maintained Windows is ever good enough, it isn't. The thing didn't earn its bad fame for free. A better OS also needs maintaining, but its far easier to keep those secure than Windows ever will and this is a rock solid fact backed by decades of experience. Sure, you can make a living maintaining those (maybe thanks for being what it is), but that doesn't mean its any good. Internet is not run by Windows servers, they remain a minority for this very reason.

If you want to save your money in a safe wallet go for the hard wallet or cold storage wallet. They are very reliable and provide you with the ultimate security. The important pint over here is the mistake done at your part. The important keys or information related to your wallet is your responsibility, you should yourself put it in a safe place so that no thief can approach it. Carelessness done by you can give you big loses so bring improvement in yourself before investing.

Real ones?

If the Bitcoin is turned into a physical coin, it is not the real one. It may be viewed as a representation of the real one. The real Bitcoin is something you cannot hold with your hands.

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I'm afraid the Bitcoin that you've lost, OP will be lost forever. It is stolen and it is virtually impossible to expect some good deed from the thief itself. Your lesson here is very expensive. But next time, avoid saving significant amount of BTC in hot wallets.

In my opinion, your bitcoin's amount have been stolen because  your private key was not secured well and unfortunately, you have nothing to do, it is impossible to recover your funds. Accept this loss and deal with it, complaining and crying will change nothing, try to find  a way to earn BTC, there are many opportunities, just use your mind smartly. Remember that security is essential in order to make your wallet safe without it  you will get stolen again.

There are two things you can confirm that if you lose your money from your desktop client. If you you give your your private key phrase to someone else or or  JSON file then anyone can access your wallet from their computer installing the standalone version of electrum. Even if you Share or lost wallet phrase the time also chance of cleaning your wallet is possible.

Given the amount of money you have, you could NEVER afford bars, not even if you worked your entire life.    If 3000.00 dollars was a lot to lose for you, that is 2 coins that will fit in your pocket.  My suggestion was to not buy BTC, and you would never have been hacked and been much better off.

WISE UP

Thank you very much for the fact that many of you have contributed to this topic. Not wanting to remain indebted - I think I should respond to any statements I have read here. Thank you especially to those who took the time to explain the real cause of the theft. So to sum up the recurring conclusions, tips, opinions:

1. "Use of an infected / unofficial version of the wallet": dropped out. The wallet came from the manufacturer's official website and was not updated. I do not use any intermediate pages when downloading anything (let alone a wallet application)
2. "I have my computer infected": nothing more wrong. Both before and after the disappearance of funds - no infected processes or files were present on the computer. Unless it's something that is not known to anyone (?). In any case, Malwarebytes Premium and additional Microsoft Safety Scanner tools have not detected anything, the computer is automatically updated every day, and the browser and even stupid autostart is so pedantically clean that I do not know whether additional packet transfer monitors that track traffic are also needed, because nothing has ever aroused my suspicions. I agree on the issue of your system ... it's actually WINDOWS .... 10 ... PROFESSIONAL. Also from the original ISO distribution under the original license.
3. "Physical interception of a saved key" - dropped out ... The key was not saved in writing NEVER and ANYWHERE! I entered it ONCE once using CTRL + V - five transactions before an unauthorized transaction. So the keylogger is also out, and I won't mention swapping, interception or anything else, because, as I remind you: after withdrawing funds to my stolen address - the funds were available for 30 minutes and I did not make any outgoing transaction.
4. Someone rightly stated that I was not involved in the discussion .... I now have very serious problems that are really more important for me to control than reading opinions like:
5. ... "that I will ask for donations and I will bitterly regret to pluck anyone" - those ignorant and "masters" I especially greet with the middle finger ... you will understand when someone closest to you will depend only on you. I wrote about it, as a result of the trauma that occurred on the day it happened ... Understand who will actually have the basis to feel guilty of something that has not been done, but could. I don't want anything from anyone, much less from the poor who said that.

Thank you again for your kind words and for your private inquiries that specifically target something ... I will be grateful for the leads on the sites where I can also carry out such activities, because my Google inquiries and transaction tracking came to the point where I found that mixes were made to lose track.

P.S. To the gentleman who proposed an investment in BTC (gold) for 1550 USD / oz ... - and what ... should I buy bars and mock them?

Regards

Or Keep you BitCoins in a hardware wallet and hidden where no one can find it, so even if someone is able to see THIS, they will not be able to get your BitCoins out !
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Hard Facts

You are using a wallet which is not official. Where have yoi downloaded the wallet? Verify the app. If that's not the case, someone else have your private key or seed or your wallet file. Better you change everything.

The OP has already got the answers so I think he should lock this thread and people should stop giving more advises when he has got his understanding cleared.

sad to say but your funds has been stolen and there is no chance of getting them back.

it happens to me once in the past when i used a fake site(but in another wallet and exchange)and all i do is just use it as a wake up call of downloading all important sites or Bookmarking them for future using so i may stay safer .

or maybe there are someone got into your file without noticing like friends or house mates.

You are seriously not saying that a fully updated windows machine is naturally compromised. Windows machines (and servers) run tons of extremely sensitive data that is constantly under target and attack. This is not an operating systems issue this is a failure of OP who probably downloaded a fake wallet or most likely is just lying to get pitty donation funds.

For the past year or 1.5 year or so. Electrum was under major phishing attacks. Basically you would load Electrum and when you tried to send a transaction it would give you an error saying you need to download a new version. You would click that link without looking and download an authentic looking electrum version and it would steal your private keys as soon as the file was executed. This has been going on for a while. Some people got lucky and their electrum crashed so they would have to manually go to the official electrum website and find out what is going on.

I am assuming this is what happened or he got some virus or malware somehow. Visiting some shady sites or downloading some shady wallets/miner software. This is why you should always keep your BTC in cold storage so its impossible to get your coins stolen. All you do is go on the cold storage computer and just sign your transaction. Only way to keep your coins secure, that or a hardware wallet.

While there are many reasons why this happened, I particularly think that there might be 2 major reasons why this would have happened.

1. You might be using a pirated version of the Electrum wallet. There are thousands of infected versions of wallets on the internet.
May be you just got unlucky and downloaded one of those infected versions.

2. Your system might be infected with a virus or something that gained authorization over your system and made the second transaction.

Are you sure you want to show your seed in public ? 

Electrum is great, I use it and have never lost any BitCoins !!!  I put my BitCoins on a USB stick so that even though hackers can see my Seed Words, they still can not get my BitCoins.



Hard Facts

Let me guess, Windows? Did you never read that using insecure OSes for money handling leads to this?

The private key is not exposed, but they could: Keylog so they get the password from your wallet when you opened it, and (probably earlier) already copied your wallet out since they compromised your PC.

Yes in theory you can double spend but that has to be done too quickly, before the next block is found probably (unless they used a very low fee). To double spend you could recreate your wallet in a secure pc using your seed words and quickly send all your funds elsewhere. Of course by the time you read this is too late, this kind of thing can only be done in advance, but if you have been paying attention something like this would have never occurred in the first place.

Sorry but Bitcoin has no hand holding. When you are your own Bank, if comes with responsibilities. If you cannot trust protecting yourself, you probably need to keep paying others to protect you instead.

In an ideal world, you would have known better. That the computer to do the serious stuff, cannot be the same one you do your leisure things.

A 3rd alternative is trusting the hardware wallet manufacturers, if you cannot be bothered to use a Free and Open Source secure OS like everyone should. Hey, even if you DO use a secure OS, extra precautions are needed when handling valuables by yourself, but when you use the most insecure OS on earth, don't expect miracles.

Another possible vector would be that you had that computer compromised at wallet creation, in that case they got the seed words. This is why there is a guide out there that teaches people how to use (Linux+Tor) Tails) to create a wallet using Electrum securely.

If you search the forum you will find people had lost millions doing the same exact mistake, you are not alone.

Think of a valet parking that copies the key of your car then follows you home and steal it. Its not the car company fault that you gave the key (if temporary) to a stranger. A wallet is that, keys. Don't let it get copied by strangers... And yes, you could have chosen to go to a more secure location where you never handle your key or risk it in any other way.

I'm sorry, friend. I also know what it's like, our BTC is moving to another wallet even though it is not our control, even though we will use the funds for urgent needs. It's sad, but what else can I do? although me and you have tried your best to maintain the security of the device, nothing is really safe. And the thief can always enter through the slightest gap.
As many members explained, there is no way to cancel the transaction, it might be tracked but "they" seem to have prepared the theft well so it is not easy to track.
Hopefully, you can accept this gracefully and get a better chance soon for your mother's recovery.

It looks like we won't be hearing from OP. It's been days and no info. He either has some real problems or managed to somehow find the infection and link it to his missing coins.
With millions of Bitcoin users around the world if coins were disappearing like that and you could intercept someone's private key and steal everything, the Internet would be boiling.