Blockchain Bandit moves $172 million after two years of inactivity

The notorious hacking group, under the guise of the “Blockchain Bandit,” made a major comeback by merging 51,000 ether into a single wallet, totaling $172.2 million, after nearly two years of inactivity.

Funds were transferred between 8:54 PM and 9:18 PM UTC on December 30 from 10 inactive wallet addresses to a multi-signature wallet named “0xC45…1D542”. Each transaction represents 5,000 ETH. Among them, the ones that were on January 21, 2023, were all those that the blockchain bandit transferred 470 bitcoins (Bitcoin(Along with Ethereum)Ethereum).

“Blockchain Bandit” is the one that carried out a new form of cybercrime using the method of weak private keys, known as “Ethercombing”, which relies on a brute force approach to find problems in poorly written code and randomness generators. As for cryptocurrency security expert Adrian Bednarek, the hacker was able to crack 732 private keys, equivalent to 49,060 transactions.

The bandit started in 2016, but most of the thefts were in 2018. Eight months later, he had already managed to generate 45,000 ETH through automated theft; This activity has made him the biggest threat in the world of cryptocurrencies. This incident has become a real thorn in the side of the rise in the number of cryptocurrency thefts that have occurred over the past few years.

The return of the Blockchain Bandit, at the same time, highlights the vulnerabilities in cryptocurrencies that are an inevitable part of the blockchain ecosystem. In a report by blockchain security firm Cyvers, the total amount of money stolen in 165 security incidents in 2024 was $2.3 billion, representing a 40% increase from the previous year. 81% of the total funds lost, or $1.9 billion, were the result of access control breaches on centralized exchanges and custodial platforms, with a significant focus on Slaughtering pigs Tricks.