After almost two years of inactivity, a hacker known as the “Blockchain Bandit” has shifted 51,000 Ethereum
The hacker gained notoriety for stealing Ethereum by exploiting weak private keys. The funds, previously spread across 10 wallets, have been consolidated into an address labeled “0xC45…1D542”.
Before Blockchain Bandit moved the stolen Ethereum, the funds had been idle in these wallets since January 2023. On the same day in 2023, the hacker also transferred 470 Bitcoin
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Blockchain investigator ZachXBT shared the details in a December 30 Telegram post. The transfers, typically in batches of 5,000 Ethereum, occurred between 8:54 PM and 9:18 PM UTC.
The Blockchain Bandit’s activities date back to 2016, with the major thefts occurring in 2018, as noted in ZachXBT’s analysis.
In April 2019, the hacker successfully guessed 732 private keys, which enabled access to 49,060 transactions, and stole nearly 45,000 Ethereum. This approach, called “Ethercombing”, relies on scanning for vulnerabilities like faulty code and poorly generated random numbers.
The true identity of the Blockchain Bandit remains a mystery. Adrian Bednarek, a senior security expert, previously speculated that the hacker could be linked to a state actor, such as North Korea, but no evidence confirms this theory.
On December 17, ZachXBT also reported that hackers stole $5.36 million from around 40 LastPass users. How did they pull it off? Read the full story.
