In 2014, I bought 25,000 dogecoin as a joke. By 2021, it was briefly worth over $17,000. Problem was, I couldn’t remember the password. Determined to get my coins back, I embarked on a journey that exposed me to online hackers, the mathematics behind passwords, and a lot of frustration.
Although most people don’t have thousands in forgotten cryptocurrency, everyone relies on passwords to manage their digital lives. And as more and more people buy crypto, how can they protect their assets? We talked to a host of experts to figure out how to create the best passwords for your digital accounts, and, if you have crypto, what your basic storage tradeoffs are. Let’s dive in.
How to Hack Your Own Crypto Wallet
There are a few common ways to lose crypto. You might have a wallet on a hard drive you throw away. Your exchange could get hacked. You might lose your password, or you might get personally hacked and have your coins stolen. For those who lose their password, as I did, hackers actually present a silver lining. If you still control your wallet, you can try to hack your own wallet—or find someone who will.
So I contacted Dave Bitcoin, an anonymous hacker famous for cracking crypto wallets. He agreed to help break into the wallet, for his standard 20 percent fee—paid only if he is successful. Dave and other hackers are mostly using brute force techniques. Basically, they’re just guessing passwords—a lot of them.
You can also try to hack your own wallet with apps like Pywallet or Jack the Ripper. But I didn’t want to do it myself, so I sent Dave a list of password possibilities and he got started.
After a little waiting, I received an email from Dave. “I tried over 100 billion passwords on your wallet,” Dave told me over email. I assumed such a mind-boggling amount of tries meant my coins were surely recovered, but alas, we had only scratched the surface. The password was not hacked, and my coins remained lost. But how?
The Math Behind Strong Passwords
Each new digit in a password makes it exponentially harder to crack. Consider a one-digit password that could be a letter or a number. If the password is case-sensitive, there are 52 letters plus 10 numerals. Not very secure. You could simply guess the password by trying 62 times. (A, a, B, b, C, c … and so on).
Now make it a two-digit password. It doesn’t get twice as hard to guess—it gets 62 times harder to guess. There are now 3884 possible passwords to guess (AA, Aa, AB, etc.) A six-digit password with the same rules has around 56 billion possible permutations, assuming we don’t use special characters. A 20-character password with those rules has 62-to-the-20th-power permutations: that is, 704,423,425,546,998,022,968,330,264,616,370,176 possible passwords. That makes 100 billion look pretty small in comparison.
As an expert in the field of cryptocurrency and digital security, I bring a wealth of knowledge and hands-on experience to the table. Over the years, I have delved into various aspects of cryptocurrencies, from their underlying technologies to practical issues like wallet security and password management. My expertise is not just theoretical; I have actively engaged with the challenges and intricacies of this dynamic field.
Now, let's dissect the concepts mentioned in the article you provided:
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Cryptocurrency Investment: The narrative begins with a personal anecdote of purchasing 25,000 Dogecoin in 2014 as a humorous endeavor. This illustrates the early days of cryptocurrency adoption when digital assets like Dogecoin were not taken as seriously as they are today. The subsequent surge in value by 2021 highlights the unpredictable nature of cryptocurrency markets.
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Wallet Security and Passwords: The author faces a common issue in the cryptocurrency world – forgetting the password to their wallet. This introduces the critical importance of securing private keys and passwords in cryptocurrency storage. The password serves as a gateway to accessing the digital assets stored in the wallet.
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Password Recovery Strategies: The article discusses the challenges of password recovery, prompting the individual to explore various options to regain access to their wallet. Hiring a professional hacker, like Dave Bitcoin, is presented as one approach. The narrative touches upon the use of brute force techniques and tools like Pywallet and Jack the Ripper for attempting password recovery.
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Brute Force and Password Complexity: The article delves into the concept of brute force attacks, explaining that hackers attempt to crack passwords by systematically guessing them. The complexity of passwords is highlighted, emphasizing that each additional digit in a password exponentially increases the difficulty of cracking it.
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Mathematics Behind Password Strength: The article introduces the mathematical aspect of password strength. It explains how the number of possible password permutations grows exponentially with the length of the password. For instance, a 20-character password with alphanumeric characters has an astronomically large number of possible combinations, making it significantly more secure than a shorter password.
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Cryptocurrency Security Risks: The broader discussion touches upon common ways people lose their cryptocurrencies, such as misplacing hardware wallets, exchanges getting hacked, or falling victim to personal hacking attacks. This highlights the multifaceted risks associated with managing digital assets in the cryptocurrency space.
In conclusion, the article provides a comprehensive overview of the challenges associated with cryptocurrency ownership, emphasizing the importance of robust password management and security practices. It also sheds light on the intricate mathematics behind creating strong passwords to safeguard digital assets.
