A security company comes forward saying it can unlock ``35 billion yen worth of Bitcoin'' for which the password has been lost, but the owner refuses to help.
Cryptocurrency decryption startup Unciphered has announced that it has found a way to decrypt a USB drive that stored 7002 Bitcoins, which is equivalent to approximately 35.7 billion yen at the time of article creation, and which became inaccessible after losing its password. Did. However, the owner of the virtual currency politely declined the offer, stating that he had already concluded a contract with another expert.
Security firm claims it can unlock IronKey USB drive holding 7,000 Bitcoin hostage, but owner politely declines | TechSpot
Startup says it can access $235M in locked bitcoin — but owner says 'no thanks'
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Stefan Thomas, a Swiss cryptocurrency entrepreneur, has a USB drive with a huge amount of Bitcoin stored on it, but is having trouble accessing it because he forgot the password. More than 10 years ago, he received 7,002 BTC as a reward for creating an animation explaining Bitcoin, which was not yet widely known at the time, and stored it on an encrypted USB drive, IronKey . did.
However, after that, Mr. Thomas lost the memo in which he wrote the password and was unable to access the encrypted Bitcoin. What's more, IronKey has a built-in mechanism that completely erases its contents after 10 failed password attempts, and since it has already failed 8 times, there are only 2 attempts left.
The details of how Mr. Thomas lost access to Bitcoin are detailed in the following article.
A programmer who is a Bitcoin billionaire but can't touch his big money because he forgot his password - GIGAZINE
Around the same time, a team of cryptography experts and hackers launched Unciphered, a security company that specializes in decrypting locked devices, and began working on the same type of IronKey that Thomas has since early 2023. We have started 'Project Everest' to explore intrusion techniques.
Unciphered set out to develop the technology to break IronKey's security, buying up identical USB drives, reverse engineering the code to find security holes, and examining the structure of the chips and USB drives with microscopes and CT scanners. We worked to break through the protection. In July 2023, it succeeded in reading the contents of an IronKey drive for the first time, and subsequently passed 1000 decryption tests.
According to Unciphered, the team has devised a way to circumvent IronKey's trial limit through a total of about 8 months of research, and has obtained a virtually infinite number of trials. However, if this technology leaks, it could develop into a national security issue, so the details of the research are being kept secret.
Unciphered CEO Eric Michaud declared, 'We have just climbed Mount Everest.'
Unciphered immediately contacted Mr. Thomas through a common person, but Mr. Thomas refused his offer of cooperation. In his response email, Thomas explained that he was already working on the recovery with another expert and was unable to negotiate with another team at this time. However, if the team working on the work determines that it is necessary to do so, there is a possibility that Unciphered will be asked to subcontract.
The IronKey in question is stored in a Swiss vault at the time of article creation. TechSpot, an IT news site that reported on the incident, said, ``It's worth noting that Mr. Thomas probably doesn't have any money problems.'' When interviewed by The New York Times in 2021, he said, `` 'He said he owned enough Bitcoin to make him rich that he didn't even know how to use it for, and that he didn't have the password to do it.'
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in Security, Posted by log1l_ks