Baidu promotes Trojan wallet, users lose Bitcoin

Mr. Dai was an early Bitcoin player who started in 2013 and was also one of the early home miners. 2014 years later, due to the decline in mining income and the high noise of home mining, he sold the mining machine and stopped using the Bitcoin in his wallet. In November this year, Mr. Dai found that the blockchains online wallet he had been using could not receive double verification information, whether it was the security email or the mobile phone number. For security reasons, he decided to download the official wallet with a private key to restore it. Unexpectedly, this operation instantly disappeared all the Bitcoin from the previous mining income.

Event Review

On November 19, Mr. Dai searched for "Bitcoin official wallet download" on Baidu search engine, entered the first page (http://btc.xmeio.cn/), and downloaded the Bitcoin wallet that appeared on the page. After the wallet data was updated for 6 days, at 1:38 am on November 25, after Mr. Dai entered another Bitcoin address and password he owned, the transfer address was automatically changed to another Bitcoin address. Mr. Dai's 7.02 Bitcoins were transferred to someone else's address, and it was too late to realize that the wallet was a Trojan wallet.
Considering that the wallet website link was at the top of Baidu’s search engine promotion homepage, Mr. Dai decided to apply to Baidu for protection to see if he could contact the company promoting the Trojan wallet through Baidu and recover his Bitcoins.

A few days later, Baidu's guarantee result was: guarantee failed. The detailed explanation was that Baidu could not technically confirm that there was a problem with its promotion website and could not confirm that it was related to Mr. Dai's loss. Such a result made Mr. Dai very angry. At the same time, Mr. Dai checked the Baidu reputation of the company and found that in March this year, a Chengdu user had encountered the same problem. His screenshot showed that the first page of Baidu search for the keyword promotion of "Bitcoin wallet" was btc.ygbtcc.cn. Although the URL was different, after clicking in, the display interface was exactly the same. It was speculated that it was a vest of the same Trojan wallet. However, due to insufficient evidence from the user, the complaint was also fruitless.

What is even more infuriating is that after the website was reported in March, the webpage is now inaccessible, even though the victim did not receive compensation. The webpage btc.xmeio.com that Mr. Dai clicked on also disappeared from Baidu search results within an hour after he submitted evidence and called the police. A day later, the website address was no longer accessible. Mr. Dai believes that if Baidu's explanation that "it is technically impossible to confirm that there is a problem with the promotion website" is true, then why did they close the website? If the website was closed because of fraud and phishing, how could they continue to charge for promotion shortly afterwards?

Netizen assistance

In desperation, Mr. Dai posted a help post on Caiyunbit. Within a day, many netizens offered suggestions to help recover the lost bitcoins.

Netizen Xiao Ruo 2015-12-10 01:53:

Is the website you downloaded from Zhengzhou Shengjia Trading Co., Ltd. the main culprit? You should report this company to the police. Baidu will be held jointly liable as an accomplice. Zhengzhou Shengjia Trading Co., Ltd. Unified Social Credit Code/Registration Number: 410183000034574

As long as it is proven that the software is infected, it will be fine. However, it seems that this family's website has been hacked, and we need to trace the operator behind the website. In the end, it still comes back to the judicial level. It is quite difficult. The public security organs will determine that it is a violation of the law and then hand it over to the network security technology for processing. The amount involved is not high, you know. And there is no legislation on Bitcoin. Then there is a compromise method that you can try, see if you can get a certificate with an official seal (confirming that the loss was made through Baidu. Anyway, there is no legislation on Bitcoin, and the official seal is not illegal, at most it is considered as game currency or something like that) and fax it to them.

Netizen Hank 2015-12-10 06:39:

Your address1JZrWMo8PnLvuEAWo58qXhmF1Jo9ZH6eMD
Transferred to 1BWmP31YJHd3AAuyCP5JdC6Ryc9143aNif
Then go to 1DAUFTTSVvnyngsqiv64U2cCW2gjNKbUU which is marked as btc-e.com in the database

Where did Baidu go wrong?

In this case, Baidu did nothing wrong in charging for promotion, but it was wrong in not doing more screening. The "Baidu Internet User Rights Protection Plan Protection Scope Clause" clearly states:

Baidu Internet User Rights Protection Plan is committed to making Baidu users feel more assured when using Baidu search engine. When a user is logged into a Baidu account, if the user clicks on a website within the protection scope of Baidu and the relevant website operator uses fraudulent behaviors such as impersonating the official website or impersonating administrative license qualifications, phishing, etc., causing the user to suffer direct economic losses after the transaction, the user can apply for a security deposit from Baidu in accordance with the relevant rules of the protection plan and obtain relevant support from Baidu in terms of consumer rights protection.

每一次点击，都可能造成一位受害者. It is simply shirking responsibility to give users excuses such as "technically unable to confirm" afterwards.

Since the birth of Bitcoin, the loss of coins has never stopped. Whether it is stolen, deceived by phishing websites, or your own operational errors, once Bitcoin is lost, no matter how big or small the amount is, it is always a long way to go to get it back. We can only remind the majority of digital currency players again that涉及财产安全，操作需谨慎.

If there are any technical experts willing to help Mr. Dai recover his lost Bitcoins, please feel free to contact us.

Event Correlation

Bitcoin player Zhao Dong posted on Weibo yesterday that there may be technology that can recover lost Bitcoins. It is still in the process of trial and error. But this also excited many players, at least recovering lost Bitcoins is expected.

At the same time, the Babbitt Forum has a 315 rights protection section where users can try to apply for rights protection.

Reporter: Meng Dada
Editor: Meng Dada
Source: Babbitt Information (http://www.8btc.com/baidu-mumaqianbao)