New Yorker Dan Reich recently retrieved over $2 million in crypto from a Trezor wallet with the help of legendary computer expert and hardware hacker Joe Grand.
The Portland-based hacker known by his nickname “Kingpin” offered a detailed account of how he cracked the wallet and recovered the “lost” crypto funds in a recent YouTube video.
How It All Began
Dan Reich and a buddy decided to spend $50,000 on the freshly minted Theta token, which was selling for roughly 21 cents at the time.
They first held the tokens on a Chinese exchange, but owing to the local government’s increasing crackdown on cryptocurrencies, they were forced to transfer them to a Trezor One hardware wallet. They did, however, forget about the coins.
Reich finally recalled the Theta tokens and opted to sell them. However, because his companion had misplaced the paper on which he had written the wallet’s PIN, they were forced to guess the 5-digit PIN. However, they have already made multiple incorrect guesses at this stage.
The duo decided to cease guessing after 12 failed tries since the data on the wallet will be deleted automatically after the 16th erroneous try.
A $50,000 investment yielded a $2 million profit.
The amount of their “lost” crypto riches increased to $2 million this year as Theta’s price increased over time. Reich and his buddies stepped up their efforts to reclaim the monies, fueled by their crypto riches.
They soon located a Swiss financier who claimed to have French contacts who could open the wallet in a lab. They insisted, however, that Reich not travel to the lab or know the identity of the persons who would presumably be breaking the wallet in order to complete the task.
Despite how insane the plan seemed, the two were prepared to take a chance when they were desperate. In an unexpected turn of events, Reich discovered Joe Grand in the United States.
The Day is Saved by a Hacker
They contacted the computer engineer right away, and he agreed to assist them. To duplicate the wallet Reich and his friend possessed, Grand purchased three comparable wallets and loaded the same version of firmware on them. He went through a 12-week trial and error process before figuring out how to recover the lost PIN.
To get beyond the wallet’s microcontrollers’ security, Grand claimed he employed a fault injection attack, which alters the voltage travelling to the device. It stops hackers from accessing the RAM and gaining the PIN required to open the wallet and its contents.
“We are basically causing misbehavior on the silicon chip inside the device in order to defeat security. And what ended up happening is that I was sitting here watching the computer screen and saw that I was able to defeat the security, the private information, the recovery seed, and the pin that I was going after popped up on the screen,” the hacker explained.
Reich and his companion reclaimed their $2 million crypto windfall, and Grand received his share of the loot.
Trezor Reacts
Meanwhile, Trezor, the creator of hardware wallets, was quick to reassure customers when the story broke, stating that the vulnerability that Grand used to retrieve the stolen crypto had been detected and remedied.
The business also stated that all of its new devices are “delivered with a patched bootloader,” which eliminates the vulnerability.
