Renowned American engineer Joe Grand, along with his colleague Bruno, recently made headlines in the crypto world by leveraging an ingenious loophole in an older version of the RoboForm password manager. This exploit allowed them to recover a staggering $3 million worth of Bitcoin.

The story began when Joe Grand was approached by Michael, a European crypto owner, in 2022. Michael sought Grand's expertise to help him regain access to his Bitcoin, which was locked away due to a forgotten 20-character password generated by RoboForm and stored within a TrueCrypt-encrypted file.

Grand and Bruno embarked on a months-long journey of reverse-engineering the specific version of RoboForm that Michael had used back in 2013 when he created his password. Their persistence paid off when they unearthed a critical flaw in the password generation mechanism of the older RoboForm version. This flaw made passwords predictable based on the computer's date and time, providing a potential avenue for recovery.

Their investigation revealed that passwords generated by RoboForm prior to a patch in 2015 could be vulnerable to this exploit. Despite their findings, RoboForm has yet to make any public statements regarding the matter.

Armed with this knowledge, Grand and Bruno initiated a brute force attack, generating millions of potential passwords within the timeframe when Michael likely created his password. After refining their approach, they successfully cracked the code, pinpointing the exact password creation moment on May 15, 2013, at 4:10:40 PM GMT. This breakthrough granted them access to Michael's wallet, containing a substantial 43.6 BTC, now valued at approximately $3 million.

This remarkable feat adds to Joe Grand's reputation as a seasoned hardware hacker and digital security expert. Notably, he previously gained attention within the crypto community for assisting in the recovery of $2 million in BTC from a Trezor One wallet in 2022.

As the founder of Grand Idea Studio, Joe Grand continues to push the boundaries of digital security and hardware hacking. Under his hacker handle "Kingpin," he remains a sought-after consultant, helping companies bolster their cybersecurity defenses in an ever-evolving digital landscape.