vuke

Research tool for analyzing and reproducing vulnerable Bitcoin key generation.

Features

• Modular architecture - pluggable sources and transforms
• Multiple input sources
  • Numeric ranges (test weak seeds)
  • Wordlists (brainwallet analysis)
  • Timestamps (time-based PRNG exploitation)
  • Stdin streaming (pipeline integration)
• Historical vulnerability transforms
  • Direct (raw bytes as key)
  • SHA256 (classic brainwallet)
  • Double SHA256 (Bitcoin-style hashing)
  • MD5 (legacy weak hashing)
  • Milksad (MT19937 PRNG - CVE-2023-39910)
  • Armory (legacy HD derivation)
• Key origin analysis - reverse detection of vulnerable generation methods
• Parallel processing via Rayon
• Address matching for scanning known targets
• File output for saving results
• Pure Rust implementation

Why This Project?

This tool is designed for security research - understanding how vulnerable keys were generated in the past helps improve modern wallet security.

Historical vulnerabilities this tool can reproduce:

Installation

Cargo

cargo install vuke

From source

git clone https://github.com/oritwoen/vuke
cd vuke
cargo build --release

Usage

Generate single key from passphrase

vuke single "correct horse battery staple" --transform sha256

Output:

Passphrase: "correct horse battery staple"
Transform: sha256
Source: correct horse battery staple
---
Private Key (hex):     c4bbcb1fbec99d65bf59d85c8cb62ee2db963f0fe106f483d9afa73bd4e39a8a
WIF (compressed):      L3p8oAcQTtuokSCRHQ7i4MhjWc9zornvpJLfmg62sYpLRJF9woSu
---
P2PKH (compressed):   1JwSSubhmg6iPtRjtyqhUYYH7bZg3Lfy1T
P2WPKH:               bc1qfnpg7ceg02y64qrskgz0drwp3y6hma3q6wvnzr

Scan wordlist for known addresses

vuke scan --transform=sha256 --targets known_addresses.txt wordlist --file passwords.txt

Test numeric range (weak seeds)

vuke generate --transform=milksad range --start 1 --end 1000000

Test timestamp-based keys

vuke scan --transform=sha256 --targets addresses.txt timestamps --start 2015-01-01 --end 2015-01-31

Multiple transforms

vuke scan --transform=sha256 --transform=double_sha256 --transform=md5 --targets addresses.txt wordlist --file words.txt

Pipe from stdin

cat passwords.txt | vuke generate --transform=sha256 stdin

Save results to file

vuke generate --output results.csv range --start 1 --end 1000000
vuke generate --output results.txt --verbose range --start 1 --end 1000
vuke scan --output hits.txt --targets addresses.txt wordlist --file passwords.txt

Benchmark transforms

vuke bench --transform milksad

Analyze private key origin

Check if a private key could have been generated by a vulnerable method:

vuke analyze c4bbcb1fbec99d65bf59d85c8cb62ee2db963f0fe106f483d9afa73bd4e39a8a

Output:

Private Key: c4bbcb1fbec99d65bf59d85c8cb62ee2db963f0fe106f483d9afa73bd4e39a8a
Bit Length:  256
Hamming Weight: 144
---
Analysis:
  ✗ milksad: NOT_FOUND (checked 4294967296 seeds)
  ✗ direct: NOT_FOUND (no direct patterns detected)
  ? heuristic: UNKNOWN (entropy=5.00, hamming=144)

Fast mode (skip brute-force):

vuke analyze --fast L3p8oAcQTtuokSCRHQ7i4MhjWc9zornvpJLfmg62sYpLRJF9woSu

JSON output:

vuke analyze --fast --json c4bbcb1f...

Specific analyzer:

vuke analyze --analyzer milksad c4bbcb1f...

Masked key analysis (BTC1000-style puzzles)

Some Bitcoin puzzles use a masking scheme where:

1. A full 256-bit key is generated (e.g., from MT19937)
2. The key is masked to N bits with highest bit forced to 1

Formula: masked_key = (full_key & (2^N - 1)) | 2^(N-1)

# Analyze 5-bit puzzle key 0x15
vuke analyze 0x15 --mask 5 --analyzer milksad

Output:

Private Key: 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000015
Bit Length:  5
Hamming Weight: 3
---
Analysis:
  ✓ milksad: CONFIRMED (seed=1610000002, full_key=7ed2...5055, masked=0x15, mask_bits=5, formula=(key & 0x1f) | 0x10)

# Analyze 10-bit puzzle key
vuke analyze 0x202 --mask 10 --analyzer milksad

Supported Transforms

Supported Analyzers

Library Usage

use vuke::derive::KeyDeriver;
use vuke::transform::{Input, Transform, Sha256Transform};

fn main() {
    let deriver = KeyDeriver::new();
    let transform = Sha256Transform;

    let input = Input::from_string("test passphrase".to_string());
    let mut buffer = Vec::new();
    transform.apply_batch(&[input], &mut buffer);

    for (source, key) in buffer {
        let derived = deriver.derive(&key);
        println!("Source: {}", source);
        println!("WIF: {}", derived.wif_compressed);
        println!("Address: {}", derived.p2pkh_compressed);
    }
}

Architecture

src/
├── main.rs          # CLI entry point
├── lib.rs           # Library exports
├── derive.rs        # Private key → address derivation
├── matcher.rs       # Address matching against targets
├── network.rs       # Bitcoin network handling
├── benchmark.rs     # Performance testing
├── analyze/
│   ├── mod.rs       # Analyzer trait and types
│   ├── key_parser.rs # Parse hex/WIF/decimal keys
│   ├── milksad.rs   # MT19937 brute-force
│   ├── direct.rs    # Pattern detection
│   ├── heuristic.rs # Statistical analysis
│   └── output.rs    # Plain text and JSON formatting
├── source/
│   ├── mod.rs       # Source trait and types
│   ├── range.rs     # Numeric range source
│   ├── wordlist.rs  # File-based wordlist
│   ├── timestamps.rs # Date range → Unix timestamps
│   └── stdin.rs     # Streaming from stdin
├── transform/
│   ├── mod.rs       # Transform trait and types
│   ├── input.rs     # Input value representation
│   ├── direct.rs    # Raw bytes transform
│   ├── sha256.rs    # SHA256 hashing
│   ├── double_sha256.rs # Double SHA256
│   ├── md5.rs       # MD5 hashing
│   ├── milksad.rs   # MT19937 PRNG (CVE-2023-39910)
│   └── armory.rs    # Armory HD derivation
└── output/
    ├── mod.rs       # Output trait
    └── console.rs   # Console output handler

Requirements

• Rust 1.70+

Disclaimer

This tool is for educational and security research purposes only. Do not use it to access wallets you do not own. The authors are not responsible for any misuse.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

References

• Milksad vulnerability - CVE-2023-39910
• Brainwallet attacks - Academic paper
• Armory documentation - Legacy HD wallet