More than $140M drained from Canada-made device
Over $140 million in Bitcoin has been stolen from users of Coldcard hardware wallets produced by the Canadian company Coinkite. The breach is linked to a software vulnerability introduced in a 2021 update.
Why it matters
This incident underscores the security risks inherent in digital asset storage and the importance of rigorous software auditing for hardware security devices.
Thousands of accounts were hacked and more than US$100 million (roughly C$140 million) in bitcoin was stolen after a flaw was revealed in security devices sold by a Canada-based company.
The company, Coinkite Inc., sells “cold” bitcoin wallets that use hardware and software to keep the funds offline, which is supposed to be safer from hackers. It is a handheld device, often called a “hardware wallet.”
The company announced late last week that the wallets of some Coldcard device users had been compromised in a hack.
On July 30, Galaxy Research, a digital financial services firm, discovered that within 41 minutes, hackers had drained more than 1,000 bitcoins from more than 1,000 addresses, equal to approximately C$99 million.
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