Two days ago, former Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpelès revealed that Ledger hardware wallets had been implanted with devices designed to steal sensitive information.
A Ledger hardware wallet that looks perfectly normal on the outside can conceal a malicious module capable of reading and transmitting recovery phrase information.
He received a modified Ledger device from Malaysia.
From the outside, the product’s shrink wrap showed no obvious signs of tampering. But after taking it apart, he found the malicious module hidden behind the screen, in a space originally meant for a cushioning pad. Its location was so discreet that ordinary users would be unlikely to notice it.
The implant was equipped with an LTE communications module, an antenna, and an eSIM, and connected to the hardware wallet’s SPI bus through a microcontroller.
It works by monitoring the display data sent to the screen and identifying the text and characters shown. When a user initializes the wallet, creates a recovery phrase, and writes it down, the malicious module could capture that information and then transmit it over a cellular network.
A Ledger hardware wallet that looks perfectly normal on the outside can conceal a malicious module capable of reading and transmitting recovery phrase information.
He received a modified Ledger device from Malaysia.
From the outside, the product’s shrink wrap showed no obvious signs of tampering. But after taking it apart, he found the malicious module hidden behind the screen, in a space originally meant for a cushioning pad. Its location was so discreet that ordinary users would be unlikely to notice it.
The implant was equipped with an LTE communications module, an antenna, and an eSIM, and connected to the hardware wallet’s SPI bus through a microcontroller.
It works by monitoring the display data sent to the screen and identifying the text and characters shown. When a user initializes the wallet, creates a recovery phrase, and writes it down, the malicious module could capture that information and then transmit it over a cellular network.