A modern-day supply chain attack? A number of users of Ledger, a long-established Bitcoin hardware wallet, have reportedly found that the Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies stored on their purchased hardware wallets suddenly disappeared.
What these users have in common is that they all bought their hardware wallets for storing cryptocurrency from CryptoBillis, a local distributor in Southeast Asia, rather than through official channels.
The current speculation is that CryptoBillis, Ledger’s hardware wallet distributor in Southeast Asia, tampered with the wallets before selling them to users—for example, by preloading them with a recovery phrase known to someone else, or modifying the wallet firmware.
Ledger, the wallet’s maker, has therefore issued an urgent warning and launched an investigation into the distributor.
What these users have in common is that they all bought their hardware wallets for storing cryptocurrency from CryptoBillis, a local distributor in Southeast Asia, rather than through official channels.
The current speculation is that CryptoBillis, Ledger’s hardware wallet distributor in Southeast Asia, tampered with the wallets before selling them to users—for example, by preloading them with a recovery phrase known to someone else, or modifying the wallet firmware.
Ledger, the wallet’s maker, has therefore issued an urgent warning and launched an investigation into the distributor.