

Bitcoin trojan caught in the wild - mike_esspe
http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/all-your-bitcoins-are-ours

======
olivercameron
This is exactly why Bitcoin will never take off outside of the geek world. Can
you imagine, in a world where millions used Bitcoin, the media fallout if
users were being robbed with zero way to reclaim their money?

Knowing how little "regular" people protect their devices, this scares me.

~~~
shazow
Here's some ways to fix this and why it won't be a problem:

\- Add encryption of the wallet and a password to the Bitcoin client and
daemon. This is already being worked on and there is working prototype. It
should be in the mainstream client very soon. Wallet Private Key Encryption:
<http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=8728.0>

\- Start trusted centralized institutions that hold your Bitcoins and protect
them (maybe even give you a bit of interest growth). There are already
numerous online eWallets that you can use—if you choose to keep your cash on
your person then it's your decision and you should acknowledge the risks. List
of eWallets: <https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Category:EWallets>

~~~
gojomo
Wallet encryption isn't any help against keyloggers and other local malware
that can observe your use of the wallet. And wallet encryption simple enough
for average folks — a short passphrase of their own choosing - is easy for
digital pickpockets to crack.

~~~
wmf
Since Bitcoin miners have awesome GPUs, malware could use the victim's own GPU
to crack their wallet. (And then go back to mining... for the malware owner.)

~~~
a3_nm
Bitcoin GPU miners are a quite small subset of Bitcoin users, and they're
probably not the least knowledgeable.

~~~
jcoder
Maybe. Wasn't the victim of the recent 25k heist a miner?

~~~
DavidSJ
Yeah, but from early 2010 when most miners were still using CPUs.

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codex
Ah, Bitcoin: the new incentive to breach computer security. Why risk stealing
credit card or bank information when you can steal Bitcoins safely and
anonymously?

~~~
weavejester
On the other hand, it's also a powerful incentive to improve computer
security.

~~~
rick888
No matter how much you improve it, there will be a never ending supply of end
users that won't install the proper updates.

~~~
weavejester
Why give them the choice? You could automatically download and apply the
updates in the background, given a sufficiently sophisticated updater. That's
basically Google's plan with ChromeOS.

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haberman
Don't worry, we've identified the thief! Put out an arrest warrant for:
f7c956f566b11751c4d3f5ca077c0406

More seriously, it's interesting that the people who have been robbed from
could observe in detail exactly where their stolen money is flowing to. So
close, yet so far away.

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gasull
A possible solution:

<http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=18141.0>

tl;dr: Create a bitcoin address, backup wallet.dat, delete wallet.dat from
your HD, and send your bitcoins to that address.

~~~
gojomo
Works until the malware scans the disk for keydata remnants from 'deleted'
files (or even old swap pages).

And this guy was trying to implement this 'offline savings' strategy, but
didn't completely understand the privacy lifecycle and transaction details —
and thus last the keys to a $180K balance:

<http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=11104.0;all>

Vanished in a poof of pure logic!

~~~
gasull
> _Works until the malware scans the disk for keydata remnants from 'deleted'
> files_

<http://srm.sourceforge.net/>

I don't use Windows but there's probably something similar for it.

~~~
gojomo
Even 'srm' and similar tools might not work as expected on a solid-state drive
with its own firmware and wear-leveling.

It's possible to protect your bitcoin keys from an arbitrarily-later malware
incursion... but very hard, in ways even most power-users don't consider.

I like bitcoin. The current sharp edges and tragic mishaps are useful, for
now, for learning about a new medium of exchange, which operates on a logic
different from almost anything that we could easily analogize to.

If bitcoin or a successor takes off, I suspect carrying large balances will
require specially hardened devices – secure VMs inside handhelds, perhaps?

And, a general desire for some recourse against instant irreversible
fraudulent transfers might make the 'finalization' of certain transactions
dependent on a remote secondary key approving (or failing to cancel) a
payment, within a timeframe sufficient to deliver second-channel
notification/confirmation.

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conductr
Any one else find the FTP password amusing?

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andrewcooke
what's with the random number generation at the start? how does rand() +
3*rand() improve on just rand()?

~~~
mootothemax
There's a great series of answers to this on StackOverflow:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3956478/understanding-
ran...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3956478/understanding-randomness)

In short: doing things like this actually _reduces_ the randomness of the end
result.

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simias
Mmh, the "underground code snippet" looks very fishy, unless I'm missing
something:

    
    
      char * appdata = getenv("APPDATA");
      char * truepath = strcat(appdata, "\\Bitcoin\\wallet.dat");

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Groxx
> _it has one motive: to locate your Bitcoin wallet.dat file and email it to
> the attacker._

Craziness. They could just send the coins to a Bitcoin address, and it
wouldn't identify them _at all_.

~~~
illumin8
Stealing your wallet.dat is easier. With a copy of your private keys they can
spend your coins from anywhere, without having to get remote access to your PC
and send them locally.

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27182818284
The BTC clients should encrypt the wallet too.

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olalonde
Uh? Aren't Bitcoin wallets encrypted?

~~~
gasull
They will be in the coming version.

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maeon3
I have an idea that may fix this broken model of Bitcoin. Make sure each penny
has a "history" on it on a public server. You can't spend the money unless it
is posted for everyone to see. Each transfer of money is documented, and the
reason for the transfer and other data. And in order to spend it, you have to
validate and review each transfer of money before it. If there is anyone
stealing money, it is just a matter of looking at the history of each penny
and then tracking down the unique id to the offender who spent the money they
didn't earn.

A safe online currency can be done, but if you champion this, the United
States government are going to find you, and squish you like the insignificant
bug you are. You would be circumventing the primary income stream of the
united states with a global standardized currency.

~~~
ghshephard
Every bitcoin in existence has its history tracked back to it's origin on
every single bitcoin node.

There is an optimization for some clients to to pare down that history, but,
in general, when you start up a bitcoin node, you have the history of every
bitcoin ever created and all of it's transactions that occurred after it.

This history, in fact, is how you can be confident that the bitcoin is
authentic - unless you have greater than 50% of the computing power of the
network, you can't substitute an alternative history which would result in the
coin landing in your hands.

~~~
vegai
That seems like a highly non-scalable solution.

~~~
weavejester
It's not as bad as it seems. VISA only averages 2000 transactions per second,
for instance, which isn't actually that much in terms of data.

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BasDirks
Problem with bitcoin: it's an eternal beta. Can't be solved either.

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ck2
This is why we can't have nice things.

