Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr has claimed that his wallet was hacked due to a Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) key compromise. The developer’s wallet had four outgoing transactions on December 31 totalling 200 BTC, meaning the hack has cost Dashjr roughly $3.3 million. PGP is an encryption system that uses a combination of two forms of encryption: symmetric key encryption and public-key encryption, which essentially means that in this system each user has an encryption key that is publicly known and a private one that is only known to the user.
Dashjr tweeted following the hack that “My PGP key is compromised, and at least many of my bitcoins are stolen.” He added that he had no idea how the hackers managed to gain access to his PGP key. The incident has now garnered widespread attention within the bitcoin community and beyond, as a hack of a high ranking individual within the framework such as Luke Dashjr could mean that anyone’s keys could be subjected to similar threats. Finally, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao stated that he is monitoring the situation closely and would immediately freeze the funds if they appeared on the centralized exchange.
