After 11 years of being forgotten, man recovers Bitcoin wallet worth $3 million with the help of a hacker (Kanchanara / Unsplash)
A man regained access to his Bitcoin wallet valued at $3 million after having forgotten about it for 11 years. Concerned about his cryptocurrency’s security, the owner used a password generator called Roboform but ended up losing the password.
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He contacted Joe Grand, known as ‘Kingpin,’ to help hack the encrypted file containing 43.6 BTC.
At the time the owner lost access, Bitcoin’s value ranged between $3,000 and $4,000, but the price has since risen over 20,000%. Grand used a tool developed by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) to crack the password generator’s code.
He discovered that, despite appearing random, the passwords were not truly unique, which allowed him to recreate the original password by setting the date back to 2013, when it was generated.
After several unsuccessful attempts, Grand and his colleague Bruno managed to generate millions of possible combinations and, with a bit of luck, finally cracked the code.
Grand emphasized that the mission’s success depended on accurately setting the parameters and time range. If these factors had differed, they would have continued their attempts without success.
Source: Unilad | Photo: Unsplash | This content was created with the help of AI and reviewed by the editorial team.
