Luke Dashjr, a founding member of Bitcoin (BTC) and a core developer, claims that on December 31, his PGP key was compromised. As a result, almost all of his Bitcoin was taken from him.
The developer claimed in a January 1 tweet that the suspected hackers had gained access to his PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) key, a common security approach that uses two keys to access encrypted data.
BTC Attack Suspected A Scheme To Escape Tax Season
He did not say how much of his BTC was taken overall instead, he revealed a wallet address where some of the stolen BTC had been transmitted.
Despite Dashjr’s claim that he had no idea how the attackers got their hands on his key, several members of the community have suggested a connection with an earlier tweet he had published on November 17 in which he stated that his server had been infected by new malware/backdoors on the system.
Additionally, some others seem to imply that it wasn’t a hack at all and that the seed word was either accidentally discovered or involved in a boating mishap just in time for tax season.
The term boating accident in this context refers to a frequent joke and meme, first made popular by gun enthusiasts, concerning people attempting to avoid paying taxes by claiming they lost all of their bitcoin in a fatal boating accident.
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Bitcoin Hacking Incidents
A hacker who stole W8 billion in cryptocurrencies from Nexon founder Kim Jung-ju, who passed away in the United States in February, has been given a six-year prison sentence (US$1 is equal to W1,265).
Last summer, a group of hackers led by the 39-year-old man only known as Jang stole W8.5 billion worth of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies from Kim’s account over the course of 10 days by stealing his mobile SIM card.
Four months after Kim’s murder, the cryptocurrency exchange Korbit alerted authorities to suspicious behavior in June. As a result, Jang was apprehended and charged with fraud in September.
Last month, a district court in Seoul condemned him to six years in prison, but nothing was made public about it. It is yet unknown whether Jang broke into additional cryptocurrency accounts, despite the fact that he is accused of stealing 10 other people’s SIM cards.
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