The infamous hacker known as the “Blockchain Bandit” has resurfaced, consolidating 51,000 Ether (ETH) worth $172 million into a single wallet after two years of silence.
According to blockchain investigator ZachXBT, the funds were transferred on December 30 in batches of 5,000 ETH from 10 separate wallets to a multi-signature address labeled “0xC45…1D542.” The transfers occurred between 20:54 and 21:18 UTC.
The stolen Ether had remained untouched since January 2023, when the hacker also moved 470 Bitcoin (BTC). First, the Blockchain Bandit collected nearly 45,000 ETH by exploiting weak private keys, a technique called “Ethercombing.”
This method involved systematically guessing private keys using faulty codes and random number generators. Reports from independent security assessors in 2019 found that the hacker discovered 732 private keys linked to 49,060 transactions.
Crypto…
