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Tell HN: Crypto Wallets Trust Wallet and Ledger appear to be compromised

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Re: Tell HN: Crypto Wallets Trust Wallet and Ledger appear to be compromised

#51

Post by throwawybillion »

Only read half the comments, so maybe someone has suggested this, but:

Either the seed or the ledger were compromised (I'm ignoring the trust wallet, that's not the interesting hack).

Either:

1. You're wrong about the paper copy of the seed (that is pretty obviously stored in your family's safe, based on your comments) never seeing the light of day.

2. There was another copy of the seed on some other medium (seems most likely to me, tbh — the trust wallet was also compromised so if there was a photo of the seed paper on the iPhone as well, that would add up neatly)

3. Someone got ahold of the ledger itself and the pin.

4. Your kid plugged in the ledger and got phished into signing a malicious transaction.

5. Someone has magic quantum voodoo powers and used it to steal 6. You or your kid are lying.

I've been working in blockchain for 7 years and I definitely could have missed something but those are literally the only possible options that make any sense.

Re: Tell HN: Crypto Wallets Trust Wallet and Ledger appear to be compromised

#52

Post by randomhodler84 »

Was the hardware wallet “preseeded”? There is an attack where a malicious reseller sends a unit with the seed previously generated, and a prefilled card of words. When the address is funded, the reseller can reclaim the coins.

The reason I suspect this is the attacker has swept the wallets to the same addr. This could represent a supply chain attack with a common attacker.

Re: Tell HN: Crypto Wallets Trust Wallet and Ledger appear to be compromised

#53

Post by sillysaurusx »

I went through a similar loss ($11k in Mt Gox). At the time, it felt like I'd lost everything.

It took years for me to really get over it. I'd like to spare your nephew from that, if possible.

The next week is going to be really rough for them. Just be there, and reassure them that things are going to turn out fine. Even if it seems like a massive deal right now -- possibly the biggest problem they've ever run into -- it's an illusion.

The fact is, determining how the money was stolen won't get the money back, just like determining why Mt Gox collapsed didn't get mine back. But I could've been much happier if I'd just accepted it and moved on.

In their case, this theft might be easier to stomach than an exchange collapse, because at least they won't live with uncertainty about whether the money is coming back. It's gone.

Try to remind them that as much as it sucks, they still have their health and their sense of humor. Both are priceless.

(Or perhaps just listen to them. Sometimes saying anything isn't really necessary.)

Re: Tell HN: Crypto Wallets Trust Wallet and Ledger appear to be compromised

#54

Post by mazamats »

jiehong wrote: post #18
shahbaby wrote: post #15

What if the wallet was accessed from a compromised machine?

That’s the point of a hardware wallet: nothing goes out of it. So no machine can read the private data from it. Just like a smartcard (like a yubikey).

He still cloud have connected his Ledger to a compromised client and didn't double check what he was signing before confirming it.

Re: Tell HN: Crypto Wallets Trust Wallet and Ledger appear to be compromised

#56

Post by randomopining »

gruez wrote: post #48
lacker wrote: post #33

It's possible that those wallets are compromised, but it's quite strange that both of them would be compromised at the same time. It's also strange that someone in possession of a compromise for one of these wallets would use it for merely $40,000. To me it seems more likely that your nephew is mistaken about some aspect of this story. Perhaps he used some malicious software and subsequently forgot about it. Either w…

>but it's quite strange that both of them would be compromised at the same time. It's also strange that someone in possession of a compromise for one of these wallets would use it for merely $40,000. Which is why I think this is an inside job (ie. someone close to him, or as some suggested, himself). If this was a remote hacker, it would require quite a bit of effort: scouting him out as his target, hacking his compu…

But only the 2nd wallet had the phrase on iCloud right?

So if the passphrase for the btc one was only on physical paper...

The passphrase is used for recovery if you don’t have the PK right?

Either the device was hacked or somebody got the physical written passphrase, it sounds like.

Re: Tell HN: Crypto Wallets Trust Wallet and Ledger appear to be compromised

#57

Post by kleer001 »

29athrowaway wrote: post #38
fadys wrote: post #37

Here's the BTC transaction: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/4b05e788a4338d330f3d8a19c8...

Why should we trust that your story is true?

I'm pretty sure the nephew is lying and moved the crypto himself.

Re: Tell HN: Crypto Wallets Trust Wallet and Ledger appear to be compromised

#58

Post by aneemzic »

I'm sorry, but if the ledger wallet was actually compromised it would be an extremely sophisticated zero day hack that the hackers would not compromise being exposed over a few hundred thousand.

The fact he saved a screenshot on his iPhone of either passphrase, which is number one do not, shows he wasn't being careful and likely made other mistakes that could have been exploited.

I do feel for your nephew, but it's almost certainly user error and not related to the ledger wallet at all.

Re: Tell HN: Crypto Wallets Trust Wallet and Ledger appear to be compromised

#59

Post by [deleted] »

fadys wrote: post #26
willj wrote: post #24

Can you give us more reason as to why you're 100% sure the paper was not accessed? You don't need to tell us where it is/was, but your extreme certainty in that fact seems greater than the certainty I have about almost anything in my life. Another possibility no one has mentioned yet: is it possible your nephew is lying? Perhaps he "stole" the cryptocurrency from himself, and went to his relative hoping they might gi…

I have the transfer-to addresses. The thief has done this multiple times...for 7.5 BTC too, in one instance. He's not lying and has never been known to lie. I'm sure in the same way you can be sure that if you were tasked with doing the same thing, you'll feel 100% confident that no one would be able to access that paper. And even if they did, they wouldn't know what they were looking at.

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