Stories about people having their private keys hacked or stolen are nothing new, and many lose their life savings because of these thefts. However, in an unusual scenario, a cryptocurrency user managed to save his cryptocurrencies despite losing his private keys.
Harpie, an on-chain security company, revealed a crime drama case where the good guys ultimately won. Apparently, one of the users in his Discord group raised concerns about the alleged theft of his private keys. When the company investigated the said client’s wallet, he discovered that someone was attempting to transfer funds from the victim’s accounts.
How did we do this?
About a month ago, this user protected their tokens with Harpie.
By approving and protecting their tokens with Harpie, this user gave us permission to intervene if we ever spotted a theft on their wallet.
5/7 pic.twitter.com/33KYDKZeO1
—Harpie (@harpieio) December 20, 2022
However, the security group was able to act quickly and move the victim’s funds to an unguarded address before the hacker could transfer them. This contract allowed the victim to recover their lost tokens from a different wallet that was not compromised. The security company was able to do this by offering a higher gas fee for transferring the victim’s address.
This was only possible because the victim protected their tokens with Harpie, which allowed the security company to intervene whenever a case of possible theft came to their attention. According to the company:
“When we detected the malicious transfer, we moved this user’s funds to an uncustodial vault before that transaction could be confirmed by paying a higher gas fee.”
The on-chain security firm has stated that has recovered stolen funds worth about USD 700,000 and acts as an on-chain firewall for the community.
While what Harpie did was timely intervention and required access to the user’s wallet, there have been several cases where the cryptocurrency community has also banded together to recover stolen funds and non-fungible tokens. As Cointelegraph reported in May, the Solana community came together to “rip off” a scam artist in order to recover some stolen NFTs.
With the Blockchain and distributed ledger technology that powers most cryptocurrencies, tracking any form of stolen funds is easier. On the other hand, stealing funds is only the first step for attackers, who can take years to move a small part of the funds, and have there have been cases where they have been caught even then.
Clarification: The information and/or opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views or editorial line of Cointelegraph. The information presented here should not be taken as financial advice or investment recommendation. All investment and commercial movement involve risks and it is the responsibility of each person to do their due research before making an investment decision.
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