How I hacked a hardware crypto wallet and recovered $2 million
Joe Grand2 HN recommenders · recommended in 2 months, 2022–2023
talk · intermediate · evergreen · 2022–2023 on HN
Joe Grand recounts being hired to hack a Trezor One hardware wallet and recover $2 million of cryptocurrency. He describes three months of experimentation, voltage glitching, failures and high-stakes attempts with only one chance to get it right.
Recommended as a gripping real-world hardware hacking story and a showcase of Joe Grand's skill.
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4 comments from Hacker News
I think hardware hacking is the coolest stuff ever. That is why we have so many people buying Raspberry Pi-s. I guess the best way to keep your curiosity after X years of age is to start with a really challenging project that you know has steps of micro-success. Also, find a motivating community where you can chill, rant or discuss things with. That's why I am here, you are here. You need to have some level of familiarity with the domain of knowledge so, you know what you can achieve in what amount of time. There needs to be the idea of challenge, definite success and somewhat familiarity involved. My example: I like the old school WSB community. If you know, the tesla-short era. So, I attempted to build tooling that they will enjoy, and I will have fun discussing. My checklist of accomplishments was things I knew can be completed in a few hours. The progressive dopamine hits kept me focused. I was doing great. Why did I fail? Community itself become not the same. Fun discussions were harder to find. Market kept going up, meaning tools that I made is worthless because anything I didn't make sense because stonks go up. A Complex JavaScript project felt harder to write than I anticipated. So again, community, challenge and knowing your limits. If you are looking for hardware hacking motivation, these two videos blew my mind. Joe Grand, crypto wallet hacking: ▶ this video link This channel is also good, but it is a bit wacky: link Edit: Also validation. When WSB got extremely pop
Somewhat related, I was recently pointed to a cool video about someone hacking a Trezor One. Very enjoyable watch. ▶ this video > I was contacted to hack a Trezor One hardware wallet and recover $2 million worth of cryptocurrency (in the form of THETA).
Joe Grand is one of those people: ▶ this video Also here's a presentation on finding vulnerabilities in Ironkey flashdrive: link
Even the best can make obvious mistakes. "I hacked a hardware crypto wallet and recovered $2M [video]" link Showing a blurry 16 out of 24 trezor wallet seed words ▶ this video