On April 5, St. Petersburg District Court allowed the inspector to take the cryptocurrency from the Russians. According to the researchers, he illegally gained access to another person’s crypto wallet and stole ether (Ethereum or ETH) from him. Around four thousand ETH, or more than $13 million, were found in the criminal’s various wallets and it was decided to transfer it back to the victim.
Igor Bederov, head of the information and analytical research department at T.Hunter, told socialbites.ca how this type of theft is technically implemented.
there are enough ways
According to Bederov, bitcoin and ether thefts are fundamentally no different, apart from technical issues with where information about the crypto wallet is stored – on the device or in the app.
“Any cryptocurrency can be stored in different types of wallets. There are “hot” and “cold”. The main difference between them is that the “hot” ones require a constant connection to the network, and the “cold” ones do not always,” he said.
According to the expert, “hot” wallets are on the computer and work through a cloud service. Bederov explained that such wallets are much more likely to be stolen.
As a rule, such theft is carried out by mass distribution of malware through emails, instant messengers or messages on social networks. He added that the victim should only allow the perpetrator to access a PC or laptop.
“This particular program enters the computer and finds the necessary files about the connection with the crypto wallet – login cookies. The software steals authorization sessions, login information, and password. After that, the wallet was hacked, ”said Bederov.
An expert from T.Hunter explained that cold wallets are physical environments or applications on smartphones from different manufacturers.
“They can be hacked through: through numerous data leaks from wallet users, by sending letters to owners who need to replace wallet media, or through messages about allegedly needing to restore access to them,” he said.
The expert explained that all authorization data for crypto wallets is stored on the smartphone in certain places, even if they are not used constantly.
“This is similar to what happens when deleting conversations in instant messengers. So the smartphone does not actually delete this data. The device continues to store in its memory a large amount of nonsense that it considers important, ”explained Bederov.
Is it really safe?
In a comment to socialbites.ca, the founder of the Koshelek.ru service, Mikhail Bogdanov, stated that bitcoin and ether are easier to protect against hacking when users are using sites where they have full authority.
According to the entrepreneur, if centralized sites were used to store bitcoin or ether and access was stolen, withdrawal from the account could be prevented or limited, as some sites monitor non-standard activities for security purposes.
“If they have withdrawn money from them, they can help by providing an IP address, a login device, and other similar data. If you used a decentralized service, this will not happen – the money will simply be withdrawn, but getting access keys here is much more difficult, ”warned.
According to Bogdanov, further actions to calculate the culprit depend on how professionally the person stole the funds. It is much easier to find your bitcoins or ethers if the criminal withdraws the money directly to another centralized platform – because all their wallets are known. The expert explained that the victim should contact the owners and ask them to block the funds or contact the police.
“If an attacker used decentralized services and a variety of custom mixers, then when a transaction is split into tens or hundreds of small transactions and scrambled with others to avoid tracking, then it’s nearly impossible to find out,” Bogdanov said.
According to him, even if it is possible to find the cryptocurrency address from which the attacker withdraws, it may not be possible to associate the address with his personal data. “We will have to wait until we use it in a service to pay for or pay for services where such data can be collected,” the expert said.
socialbites.ca also asked Vitalik Buterin, the creator of the cryptocurrency and Ethereum project, for a comment on the security of ether. The letter raised questions about how the Ethereum system could be improved to reduce the potential theft of cryptocurrencies. No response was received at the time of publication.
Why all threats are in crypto wallets?
Anton Bykov, a senior analyst at Esperio, told socialbites.ca that since cryptocurrencies use decentralized information storage, hacking a server with the aim of stealing bitcoin or ether is impossible.
“Thefts are made directly from wallets because the vulnerability can be found more easily on the user side, as with bank customers,” he said.
According to the speaker, you should not trust strangers who are organizing “free cryptocurrency distributions” but instead ask them to transfer a small amount to pay commission.
“It sounds crazy, but this scheme is in great demand among various scammers,” Bykov said. He also urged to carefully check the crypto exchange where the storage is carried out.
“In this case, the wallets actually belong to the site, as the user does not have a private key. The exchange may decide to “throw” its customers and take their money – there is always such a risk, ”the expert warned.
Also a crime
Yevgenia Meshkova, a member of the Russian Bar Association and information security expert, told Gazeta that although cryptocurrencies are not yet officially a means of payment in the country under Russian law, they can be considered a kind of digital currency. .ru.
“Currently, it is possible to criminalize the theft of cryptocurrencies only on the basis of Article 128 of the Civil Code of Russia, where cryptocurrency is other property subject to protection from harm,” the lawyer said.
According to Meshkova, until new laws are passed, a person for the theft of cryptocurrency in Russia can be sentenced to up to ten years in prison with a fine of up to one million rubles.
The expert explained that this penalty comes after two crimes were committed together: illegally gaining access to identifying information about a crypto wallet and cryptocurrency theft on a particularly large scale.
Source: Gazeta
