Topic: My wallet has been hacked. What to do? (Read 535 times)

Yes, it's in the wallet file protected only by your password, if there's no password set, it's in plain text that can even be read by a text editor.
Even if you changed that password or set a password in one copy of the wallet file, the other copies wont be affected by that password change.

That's because the wallet file, password or seed phrase aren't saved in a server but the local machine where the wallet is saved.

This year's "April Fools" event wasn't as crazy as the previous IMO.

For reference, here's the admin's reply to the "capcha update" thread: Re: New CAPTCHA now required before posting
Here's the list of previous April Fools threads: [Compilation] All pranks that was made by theymos in every April Fools Day come.

Absolutely not. My first thought was - "where and when did I mess up." I convulsively recalled whether I went where, downloaded what, what incidents happened during this time, how long ago I changed the password, etc. That is why your conclusion about the removal of responsibility is a miss. And I tried to answer all your questions as detailed as possible. That's why there were fewer questions asked - the wrong picture comes out. Especially in the context of the number of affected people.
And - yes, that's right, I'm upset that the money is lost - they have been accumulating for more than one year there, for a minute. And it is precisely on the basis of an analysis of the general situation that I conclude that something more than just my mistake happened and that this software was unable to protect me.

As I wrote above you can work with the wallet profile from another PC by simply entering the correct password. I wanted to clarify - does everyone know that this same file contains your seed phrase as well? Even if you write it on your forehead and put the cap on your very nose, but if this file falls into the wrong hands, the phrase will also be in these hands and the wallet can be restored as many times as the thief wants, no matter how you change the password of the remaining copies of you?

PS: by the way who was that genius who put the game as a captcha? I hardly understood at all what was needed from me and how to achieve this. You would have forced to solve the Newton binomial

When a software wallet like Electrum generates a new wallet, you're shown the wallet recovery words in an environment whoes safety is basically unknown when it is an online computer. You can make this a rather safe environment when you boot from a knowingly safe system, like TAILS or similar OS boot environments which start from a known state. If you keep this offline during the wallet creation and destroy the environment before it can go online, you're likely pretty safe.

The wallet's recovery words have to be written down offline, no exception here unless you like to gamble. Trying to save the recovery words on a digital device that might go online in some future is a recipe for desaster. Yes, yes, you shout, but it's an encrypted archive. Well, good luck with that. How strong is your encryption passphrase? Are you 100% sure (btw, you likely can't be) there's no malware, keylogger, whatever on your device?
Any online storage of your recovery words weakens the security to that of the encryption password. Typing this encryption password on an online device makes it susceptible to password stealers and keyloggers, not to mention danger from ransomware for digital storage schemes.

When you have written down the recovery words offline or stamped them in metal washers/plates, don't take a picture with your mobile device. Think about it!

Now you probably should try to remember when you handled your recovery words on which environments (online? bad!, offline? better, but doesn't help too much, if the device will go online later) and under which circumstances.

It's way easier to make mistakes than to do it all right. Use a hardware wallet in the future as decent ones are usually not affected by malware on a computer as long as you carefully examine the transactions you're going to sign with a hardware wallet.

I posted both answers - about antivirus Ok and about GPG Ok. And - yes I don't have a cold wallet otherwice I wouldn't write this topic, right?

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I have to duplicate my answer - none but the cat. To use a password the wallet-file need to be stolen but it wasn't as I already said.
Please be careful - many of the questions have already been asked and answered.

Unfortunately, this type of situation causes me to agree with you, as much as I don't want to.  But as has been demonstrated by the OP's comments on Github, he expects the development team to compensate him for his loss, as if bitcoin was FDIC insured.  Obviously it's not.

The OP doesn't seem interested in evaluating his own habits and practices to make sure this never happens again.  Doing so would equate to taking responsibility and accountability for the loss, while it's much easier to blame the software or the developers.  I can't say that the OP is unique in this situation, the lack of accountability seems to be a societal plague these days.

Electrum doesn't run a for-profit business. They don't make money on our use of their software, so there is no pool of funds from where you could get compensated. Their software is free, you don't pay any fees to them for the product you use. It's open-source software where each user is responsible for protecting their sensitive information.

Cases like this one only shows that legacy banking isn't going away any time soon. Being your own bank is a serious business. It is not a joke.


You can call the police. Nothing else can be done.

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Maybe the hacker is very close to you. Does anyone have access to your computer? Do you have a weak login password? Do you have a login password at all? These things happen too. Maybe a friend of yours took a photo of your priv key with his cell phone while you were taking a piss and then he decided to rob you after a few days.

Your earlier post states you were virus checking the electrum file rather than using the signatures electrum provides for this purpose.  I suspect that's why you lost the Bitcoin or because you did not use a hardware wallet or sign the transaction on a air gapped computer.

That's right. But I didn't have any problem with transactions to\from the wallet - everithing was Ok

It's clear. I gonna create a new wallet. But I won't can change settings of some stations which send BTC to this wallet's adress because no access to them right now. I'm unable to make sure if someone else has access to my wallet, am I right?

As I already noted I've checked my exe's with GPG

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You are right. But your advice is a bit late - I just lost all the coins. And given the fact that they have been mined for many years, it doesn’t matter anymore, I’m unlikely to be able to get into the same situation in the near future.

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The money was saved for the education of my kids or for the purchase of housing. Now it doesn't matter anymore. I am sure that even if it is confirmed that the attack was successful not due to user error, but using some kind of wallet vulnerability, Electrum does not compensate for the losses to its users, as Nicehash did in a similar situation. Because it is always easier to write off such things as viruses, errors, licenses and other rubbish than to admit there is a problem and take responsibility for the result.

In most cases concerning the theft of bitcoins, it's the user who made one or multiple mistakes. The problem is, people don't want to admit making mistakes, not to themselves and not to others. It's always something else that caused it.

Everything you do on that computer can potentially be a landmine because that's what happens if the device that holds your keys is constantly online and used for various other activities. You need to separate that. Getting a hardware wallet is the easiest way. Getting a second laptop with a genuine OS that you aren't going to use for other things online is another way. Using a completely airgapped solution is the least user-friendly but safest option.

A few years ago there were some malicious Electrum servers broadcasting a message to Electrum users directing them to download and install a malware version of Electrum.  The malware wallet would send all the bitcoin in the wallet to the hacker's address whenever the user made an attempt to send ay transaction.  I don't know if seed phrases were compromised by the same hack, but that certainly could have happened.  

I would suggest you start from scratch; fresh OS install, fresh Electrum install and make sure to verify the download before installing it, and then create a new seed.  Write the seed down on paper, and store it in a safe place.  Don't store the seed digitally, and don't store on any cloud servers.

Here's a guide for verifying Electrum with GPG: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.54223763

No, I even don't know if it's

I couldn't remember anything like this in the last 3 years

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I have no idea. I did everything to prevent this from happening

Everybody says that. But the reality is - my PC is clean.  Online scanners confirm that as well. My static AV is Kaspersky right now.

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I'm not a gamer at all, my only game is HMM 3.5 which was downloaded 15 years ago. About a year ago I had to leave my hometown because of the war UA - RU. I'm the only user of my laptop and no one else can access it in the apartment - there's no one but the cat who doesn't like BTC at all. During this time, nothing strange or dangerous happened to the software. The license is irrelevant to the situation as it doesn't require cracks or anything like that. So I really don't have any options how it could be other than if the seed was stolen much earlier, more than a year or three years. But judging by what happened, one gets the impression not of long-term storage and use years after the theft, but that the penetration took place in a recent period, which is impossible in my case.

Tell us a bit more about the computer where you used Electrum and which holds your achieved seed phrase.

What do you use it for? It makes no sense not telling the truth because it's an unfortunate learning experience. You are not going to get your BTC back, but you can learn what you did wrong and not repeat it again.

Do you use a genuine and licensed OS or a pirated one?
Do you use other pirated and cracked software on it?
Do you have other wallets installed on the same computer for any cryptocurrencies?
Is the .rar password easy to guess or bruteforce? Did you use the same password somewhere else?
Do you play cracked PC games, download torrents, watch porn, browse any other forums, software or hacking related?
Who else uses or has access to your computer?
Have you received any emails recently that you have clicked on or opened?
Are you active on Telegram or other social media and in what capacity?
What did you do in the days prior to your coins getting hacked? Did you visit any new sites, installed new software, talked with new people, anything out of the ordinary?

But how then your wallet has been hacked ? Which antivirus you use in your computer. I think you downloaded serious virus/malware somewhere.

What about some other wallet software?  The fellow on Github who's funds were also stolen mentioned he had installed a wallet on different machine, I'm assuming he means some software other than Electrum.  Have you used some other software to access your Electrum wallet, possibly?

It's rather odd, because the other guy was using the Android software, and you indicated you're using Windows Desktop software.  The issue gives me the impression that a hacker gained access to your private keys or seed phrase, but to have done so on two separate platforms (operating systems) is rather unlikely.

I encourage you to think back to any risky behavior you may have engaged in that could have led to your being phished.

I never did anything with my seed at all

Base on that transaction that you posted, and the other guy on Github who's funds were swept in the same transaction, I can only assume that your seed was compromised.  Did you sign up for any give-away or stake in some air-drop, or something of the sort?  Did you divulge your seed to any entity that promised you a reward of some type?

thank you.
I checked the signatures for both downloaded executables - they have an identical result. No errors found

I know. Just one more additional check

You can check the validity of each executable yourself by verifying their signatures.

Follow this guide to know how to verify your Electrum download: https://bitcoinelectrum.com/how-to-verify-your-electrum-download/
Signature files (.asc) for the older versions can be downloaded here: https://download.electrum.org/

By the way, Antivirus can't be a good indicator since even real Electrum, specially the older versions usually have false-positive detection from some Antivitus software.

Just if Electrum's link has faking exe's. I can upload previously used standalone - it wasn't deleted. And it was checked by an antivirus without any warnings as well as all other files on my laptop

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Thank you for you try but I would like to ask you again to pay attention for my posts - I already answered that question