Biggest Heist Ever | Netflix

Biggest Heist Ever is a Netflix documentary that shows story of the events around the Bitfinex hack in 2016, where 199,754 bitcoins were stolen. At the time this heist was worth approximately $72 million. By the time culprits were caught these assets were worth $4 billion. I haven't heard of this hack or haven't paid attention. That's why I was interested to see this new Netflix documentary. Unfortunately, I ended having more questions than answers after watching the documentary. Biggest Heist Ever is definitely not the best documentary ever Netflix has produced.

While I am not completely impressed with Biggest Heist Ever it does offers a captivating glimpse into one of the most significant cyber heists in history, shedding light on the peculiar personalities behind it and the broader implications for cybersecurity in the digital age. The story itself is interesting, and documentary does the best they can given the facts around the situation. Everything is so strange. It seems there is definitely more to the story, that documentary wasn't able to uncover. Given the circumstances I am not sure it was possible to obtain more information. I am sure we will hear more about this story in the future.

It is unfortunate that hacks keep happening in crypto space and people keep losing money. Hopefully there are lessons learned and anti-hack tools and securities are getting stronger. While culprits in this hack were caught and most of the bitcoins were recovered, customers of Bitfinex who lost their coins weren't made whole. Instead, Bitfinex just paid the dollar value of their losses, and it seems they pocketed the actual bitcoins. There is something wrong here. But I don't know the full story. If you do feel free to share.

Stealing any amount in exchanges is wrong and shouldn't be an easy task. It seems there were vulnerabilities hackers could exploit and steal funds. This wasn't just one time attack. It looks like the hack was well planned over a long period of time, creating backdoor access, and collecting passwords, and automating thousands of transactions to complete the hack. Unable to identify the culprits, investigators focus on blockchain transactions and monitor the funds. When assets get moved, if possible, they would get frozen. But this wouldn't be the case for all assets. The problem investigators will have is when the coins get into the dark web commerce sites. Here they would no longer be able to trace the coins. But it is also here where they get the breakthrough in the case.

It is not clear how exactly, but somehow everything leads to the couple who lives in New York City, Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan. I don't know how and why they make this determination, but it appears they get multiple leads leading to their address and now they start the investigating this couple. As they go deeper into the backgrounds and activities Heather and Ilya involved in, it appears as though there is no way this couple would be involved in a hack. There was nothing that would suggest this, and multiple interviewees in the documentary say the same thing.

Most of the documentary focuses on who Heather and Ilya are and tell the story of their lives. Most of it had nothing to do with the hack itself. The core story of the documentary becomes about them. However, they lack to provide the real connections Heather and Ilya had with the hack. Documentary tries to present things in the couple's lives as evidence, while at best they would be circumstantial. I understand connecting dots but when start connecting dots after we make up our minds we might be dealing with wrong dots. That is what documentary seemed to be doing. Instead of focusing on facts, which aren't many.

I still don't know or understand why investigators focused on Heather and Ilya. It could be that they were involved in dark web websites and or purchases. That alone wouldn't prove they are the hackers. I guess important point here is that that dark web website (I don't remember the name) was caught by authorities and their servers were seized as well. I guess this is where they had more information that lead them to Ilya and Heather.

They get a search warrant and search their place, and initially can't find anything that linked them to the hack. They were after private keys. The goal was to find the private keys. If Heather and/or Ilya had the private keys to the wallets involved in the hack, they they would be the suspects. After confiscating computers and other devices, it is time to wait for forensic investigators to complete their work. At this time Heather and Ilya are free and living their regular lives. They could have escaped to another country. But they don't. It seems they have no clue what was going on. They definitely do not act as the hackers.

To their disappointment investigators were able to locate an encrypted spreadsheet on their laptop and the spreadsheet contained the private keys for multiple wallets involved in the hack. Investigators are happy and start moving the funds to government wallets. At the same time the go back to arrest Heather and Ilya. When asked about the encrypted spreadsheet, the investigator declines to comment on how the file was decrypted. It is clear they knew how to decrypt it but is a huge mystery. Because if they weren't able to decrypt, there is no evidence.

Things continue getting even more strange. It turns out Ilya's father used to be or still is a hacker who hacked a big bank decades ago. Eugine Lichtenstein was caught, but his criminal records were removed, as if he made a deal and was working for the investigating agencies. During the hearing, government asks hearings to be closed ones due to nation security reasons. Both Ilya and Heather cooperate with investigation and receive reduced sentences. Ilya even asks for a witness protection. A lot of information regarding this case is classified and/or sealed it seems. Why Ilya felt he needed a witness protection? Were there more people involved in this hack. Was this hack bigger than what we think? We don't know now. Maybe more information will be revealed in the future.

As I said int he beginning, I have more questions now about this hack, then I had before watching the documentary. While it good when criminals are caught and funds are secured. But it is disappointing when customers who lost their bitcoins can't get their bitcoins back and only given the dollar value when the funs were stolen. Something is broken here. We see this kind of actions by investigators and exchanges when funds are lost due to hacks or other mismanagement problems.