Two researchers were able to assist a man in reclaiming almost $3 million in Bitcoin after regaining the password to his Trezor wallet. Joe Grand, a hardware hacker and an expert in recovering lost bitcoin, teamed up with his friend Bruno to help the victim, going by the name Michael.
Michael created the password to his wallet with the help of the RoboForm password manager and saved it in an encrypted file in 2013. The file was corrupted, and Michael could no longer access his 43.6 BTC.
Grand and Bruno were able to exploit a previously known flaw of RoboForm in their random number generator, which linked passwords with the date and time on the user’s computer when the password was generated.
Michael reached out to Grand in 2022, providing a crucial hint that he had transferred Bitcoin into his wallet on April 13, 2013. The researchers were able to use the previous findings to further refine when the password might have been created, and by doing so, they were able to determine that the password created on May 15, 2013, was the correct one.
In return, Grand and Bruno received some of the money that was obtained through the recovered bitcoin. Michael sold a small portion of the bitcoin and retained 30 BTC, equal to over $2 million at the current market value. He pointed out that he was going to keep his bitcoins and hold them until their price goes up to $100,000 per token.
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