Digital Fraud Researcher Discovers Loophole in Bitcoin Passwords
Ryan Castellucci, a security researcher at digital fraud firm White Ops, shared that there could be a loophole in which bitcoin passwords can be traced to steal funds. This might be possible through brainwallets, wherein bitcoin passwords are stored in the memory of the user through a long word or phrase that interacts with the blockchain. In particular, the brainwallet password might be traced to the private key, then to the public key, and eventually to the bitcoin wallet address. Castellucci revealed his findings in the DEF CON 23 annual global hacker convention. Traceable Bitcoin....
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A white-hat hacker has released a new tool designed to illustrate the ease with which illicit actors can steal bitcoins from brainwallets, a type of bitcoin wallet iteration where passwords are not stored digitally - but in the memory of the user. Originally conceived as a way to keep sensitive wallet data offline and make bitcoin addresses easier to remember, the brainwallet was partly undone due to how it interacts with the bitcoin blockchain. A brainwallet uses a single, long password or phrase, converts it to a private key, a public key and finally an address. Using an offline attack,....
According to a recent study on crypto asset storage and passwords, a survey that polled over 1,000 digital currency owners shows 39.7% have forgotten their passwords. The study produced by cryptovantage.com indicates that users unable to recover their passwords lost an average of $2,134. Survey Polls 1,000 US Crypto Owners, Respondents Invest $7,245 on Average Since the inception of Bitcoin in 2009, a number of people have lost coins along the way and this has spread to the myriad of crypto assets in existence today. Just recently, researchers at cryptovantage.com published a study that....
In this age of hacks and scandals, are passwords really capable of protecting your bitcoins? Each bitcoin address has a corresponding private key, which enables the owner to spend the bitcoins in it, but this private key also needs protecting. The private key for your public bitcoin address is crucial, because without it, you will lose access to your coins. You can't keep this key in your head, though, because it's a long string of alphanumeric gibberish, which is rather impractical to memorise. Some people protect their bitcoins by storing them in paper wallets, embedding them in a....
Bitcoin poker site Seals with Clubs has confirmed that its database was compromised, although it failed to mention that it lost 42,020 hashed passwords in the process. The hashes were posted to a forum some 24 hours earlier and needless to say they attracted plenty of people bent on cracking them. For some reason Seals with Clubs used SHA1 hash functions, which are for all intents and purposes obsolete. Even the latest SHA3 hash is not suitable for passwords and it appears that the site was relying on cryptographic salting to make them more secure, making sure that different hashes would....
Motor Memory is in the palm of your hand. From your various wallet passphrases to online login accounts, the need for strong passphrases, today, is imperative and this article will show you how to easily create passwords of above-average strength. Not only will you be able to generate stronger passwords on the fly, but the unprecedented techniques, such as the Motor Memory Passphrase, proposed in this article will simplify your task of creating memorable passphrases that are suitably unique, yet simple. As simple as tapping your fingers on a desk. If you've read Part One: Strong Passwords....