Researchers Retrieve Lost Password to 2013 Crypto Wallet, Recover Nearly $3 Million Worth of Bitcoin
Over a decade later, two researchers have helped a man simply identified as Michael to gain access into his crypto wallet. The wallet reportedly held 43.6 Bitcoin (BTC), worth approximately $2.96 million at current prices. One of the researchers, Joe Grand, is a well-known hardware hacker whose previous work includes unlocking lost Bitcoin that was held in a Trezor wallet at the time. According to Grand, the latest unlocking had him and his friend using the password generator RoboForm. However, they needed to take advantage of a long-fixed vulnerability in the tool before they could use it to generate the wallet’s password, he said. Michael, the owner of the wallet in question, supposedly set it up the back in 2013. He then used RoboForm to create its unique password. Despite using RoboForm, however, Michael was still not comfortable storing his password in the same password generator. As a result, he opted to hold the password in an encrypted file, which later became corrupted. That file corruption meant that he no longer had access to his 20-character password. That, in turn, translates to not having access to his crypto wallet or the 43.6 BTC therein. Recovering The Lost Crypto Wallet Password Having tried various retrieval methods, Michael got tired in 2022 and sought help at the hands of Grand. Before getting on the job, however, Grand also tapped his friend, Bruno, after discovering that he would need his assistance with cracking RoboForm’s software. On the job, the researchers soon found out that RoboForm’s supposed “random number” generator was not so random after all. Usually, the generator connects a password to the specific date and time on a user’s computer that they create the password. Although the issue has been fixed since 2015, the big discovery was that the bug, nonetheless, affected all passwords created before then. Finding the lost crypto wallet password was not an essy task. However, using specific time parameters, the duo tested numerous passwords until they arrived at the correct one, which turned out to be May 15, 2013. Michael has now given a portion of Bitcoin wealth to Grand and Bruno. He confirms he has sold off another small portion and now holds only 30 BTC. The lucky wallet owner says he plans to hold his Bitcoin until a single token is valued at $100,000.
