We all know that blockchain is very secure and your private key plays a very important part in securing your funds on the blockchain. Remember, not your keys, not your funds.
The probability of someone guessing a randomly generated ETH key is 1/2^256. That is 1 in 2 to the power of 256. In words, it would be one in one hundred and fifteen quattuorvigintillion. That sounds like a made up word!
The problem here lies with the way the private keys are generated. Consider the following private key:
0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001
It doesn't look very secure, right? This is a valid private key, you can import this into My ether wallet to check it out:
These are the type of private keys "blockchain bandits" are targeting. They monitor these addresses and any funds transferred into them will be transferred out very quickly. It is very interesting the note that the researchers tested this by transferring some ETH into one of these compromised addresses and watched as multiple "blockchain bandits" fought over themselves to try and steal the funds! Amazing, if only those people used their talents for good!
The full report can be found here: https://www.securityevaluators.com/casestudies/ethercombing/
How can you protect yourself?
You should steer clear of dodgy wallet creation websites. Stay with the popular hardware wallets and known and trusted sites like MyEtherWallet.
This is similar to having "password01" as your internet banking password.
If you are looking for somewhere to park your funds and earn interest, consider Blockfi, who are offering 6.2% per annum return on Ethereum and Bitcoin deposits up to 250ETH and 25BTC. Rates and limits may change.
If you do decide to sign up, please consider using my referral link to sign up, https://blockfi.com/?ref=6adb72d7, it will help support me and enable me to share more helpful crypto related content.
Donations are most welcomed as well:
BTC: 3FMfihUXLLNnBC6oAB5fq534oMmE1RKqJd
BCH: qp2em5gddlsdmgh2qs8xgjaztzvr0g22ycaugj65np
ETH: 0x21C8C6588808401987Dd103787c7C01Cfca8BC9e
LTC: M97wPc66PY1iTcgd2V2yWHTSRveZqBozXN
DASH: XmncvywX3MnwZjKUeGWD9CzYx45AX7ZUGo