Seed Phrase Theft

Ledger orders halt to wallet sales across Asia after tampered-device thefts

Ledger has directed resellers and distributors in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong to stop selling its hardware wallets and pull them from shelves while it investigates implanted chips found in devices sold by reseller CryptoBilis. The company's Donjon security team found a hidden microcontroller that reads recovery phrases and transmits them over LTE via an embedded eSIM, bypassing Ledger's normal integrity checks. Similar tampered units have also been reported from other sellers in Asia and Europe, including a Singapore airport retailer and MediaMarkt in Europe, which has already removed the product.

bleepingcomputer.com · 2026-10-14

Modified Ledger Nano X wallets found with hidden eSIM to steal seed phrases

Security researchers at Tibane Labs found counterfeit or tampered Ledger Nano X hardware wallets fitted with an extra chip that reads the device's screen output via electromagnetic leakage, plus a hidden LTE modem, eSIM and antenna powered by the wallet's own battery. This setup lets attackers capture a user's seed phrase as it's displayed and transmit it over mobile networks, despite the wallet's Secure Element chip remaining untouched. Ledger has acknowledged at least one customer suffered losses from a manipulated device, with total losses across victims estimated near $100 million.

heise.de · 2026-10-13