Notorious hacker unexpectedly transferred 172 million USD ETH after 2 years

This notorious hacker has siphoned off 51,000 ETH by “guessing” private keys from 2016 to 2018.

Suspicious money transfer

Blockchain Bandit, a notorious hacker, has just made a new move after nearly 2 years of “hiding incognito”, since January 21, 2023.

Early this morning (December 31), this hacker merged all 51,000 stolen ETH, worth about 172 million USD, into the multisig wallet “0xC45…1D542”. This amount was transferred from 10 different addresses, each batch of about 5,000 ETH, lasting from 03:54 AM to 04:18 AM (Vietnam time).

Source: Telegram ZachXBT

The hacker didn't stop at ETH, he also moved 470 Bitcoins at the same time, raising concerns about his next plans.

Blockchain Bandit's identity

Blockchain Bandit is known for successfully "breaking" private keys and stealing a large amount of ETH. From 2016 to 2018, he found exactly 732 private keys and collected nearly 45,000 ETH through 49,060 transactions.

The method the attacker used was Ethercombing, guessing private keys from cryptographic vulnerabilities and insecure random key generators. These thefts are called programmatic theft, peaking in 2018.

The identity of the hacker has not been revealed, but many experts suspect involvement with North Korea, which is also believed to be probing Hyperliquid's security system.

As Coin68 compiled from on-chain security platform Cyvers, hackers have stolen more than $2.3 billion from the cryptocurrency industry through 165 major attacks, up 40% in 2024. The main cause is access control vulnerabilities on centralized exchanges (CEX) and asset custody platforms. These vulnerabilities account for 81% of the total value stolen (equivalent to $1.9 billion) from 67 security incidents.

A recent emerging scam is hackers targeting job seekers. They will pretend to be recruiters or interview organizers, tricking victims into taking steps to edit microphone and camera access rights on their personal devices. If they do, the prey will accidentally download malware to their devices, creating an opening for hackers to steal assets or important information.