The infamous hacker known as Blockchain Bandit has recently moved 51,000 Ether, valued at $172 million, to a single wallet after two years of inactivity. This substantial amount was accumulated between 2016 and 2018 primarily by exploiting weak private keys. The funds were transferred from 10 different wallets to the multi-signature address “0xC45…1D542” in 5,000 Ether batches on December 30, 2024. The last recorded activity for these assets was in January 2023, indicating a significant period of dormancy. Blockchain Bandit gained notoriety by uncovering private keys linked to thousands of transactions through a method called “Ethercombing,” despite the odds of successfully guessing these keys being statistically low. The hacker's methods involved brute force techniques and identifying flaws in code and random number generation. This incident highlights the ongoing issue of cybersecurity breaches in cryptocurrency, with security reports indicating a concerning 40% increase in hacks in 2024 compared to the previous year due to access control vulnerabilities.

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