Recovering wallet from MultibitHD backup file

Question

I was able to create a Multibit HD hash in the form of $multibit$232characters32characters*32characters... If Hashcat has uncovered a password for a mbhd.wallet.aes file, what's next? One thing I'm confused about is why did Multibit HD create a wallet file with the .aes ending when it's not even a AESCrypt file or maybe that's just to throw people off??

Anyway, it doesn't really matter as long as I have the wallet password, I guess. So, what are the next steps to take to see if the wallet has private keys or not? It is only 27 Kb so I'm assuming it's a dump of the private keys, if any or it could be corrupted. I don't know the process moving forward. I think I read that Multibit HD wallets are not safe and should be converted to something else, like Electrum or something... is that true? In addition, I do not have the 12 seed/secret words so Multibit HD doesn't allow you to enter a remembered password... it wants the seed words to recover the wallet. What do you recommend and what's the correct process? Should I try to get the seed words somehow or should I try to import the keys into Electrum or something else?

Also, how does one go about getting public keys or addresses or both from private keys? Google searches are not helping so much as the Multibit HD wallet information is old and I'm not sure it's reliable. Any help and/or direction would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

If Hashcat has uncovered a password for a mbhd.wallet.aes file, what's next?

I would either

• use MultibitHD to recover the wallet or

• manually decrypt the file and manually extract all the private keys

The second method probably requires a lot more knowledge of the internals of a Multibit wallet.

One thing I'm confused about is why did Multibit HD create a wallet file with the .aes ending when it's not even a AESCrypt file

From what I've read, Multibit HD wallet backups are encrypted using the AES algorithm where the AES encryption key is the "wallet words" (not the wallet password).

You don't say what caused you to think the file with the .aes filename extension was not AES encrypted?

it doesn't really matter as long as I have the wallet password, I guess.

If what I've read is right, the "wallet password" is of no help in using a wallet backup.

However maybe what Hashcat recovered was the twelve "wallet words"? If so you would be able to use those to recover the wallet.

I read that Multibit HD wallets are not safe and should be converted to something else

Multibit became defunct in 2017. I vaguely recall there was a Multibit classic that became defunct long ago. If I remember correctly it was superceded by Multibit HD. Anyway the multibit.org URL now redirects to an unrelated project which makes me suspect it will be hard or impossible to find any official documentation or support.

This is of course a good reason to never depend on any specific software to hold your backup of your private keys. Its probably safest to have a BIP-compliant recovery phrase or private keys in WIF format. Either of these would still be usable even if your wallet developers disappear and the software becomes unusable.

I do not have the 12 seed/secret words

Then it seems to me that hashcat has been of no use to you.

how does one go about getting public keys or addresses or both from private keys?

The easiest method is probably to use established wallet software

The algorithms are public. There are many libraries or bitcoin toolsets. Its a fairly broad subject. If I wanted to do it outside of an actual wallet I'd maybe look at PyWallet, btcutils and some of the other popular toolsets.