Cracking Bitcoin wallets: I want what you have in the wallets

Abstract

Bitcoin is increasingly popular, which is partly evidenced by the significant increase in its value in recent years. This increase in popularity and value has led to malicious actors stealing, or attempting to steal, Bitcoin wallet private keys in order to gain ownership of the digital currency held in these wallets. To demonstrate this security threat, two Bitcoin wallet software are studied, namely: Multibit HD and Electrum. Each wallet is subject to a combination of a password exploits and a restore wallet exploit. Findings suggest that it is possible to gain access to Multibit HD and Electrum wallets through offline brute force password attempts. Once a password is found, it is possible to restore a wallet with all Bitcoins contained within. This restoration is possible even if access to the Bitcoin wallet has never occurred. These findings highlight the need for more research into Bitcoin wallet security and forensics.