Crypto wallet maker Ledger announced Friday that a backdoor embedded in a handful of Ledger wallets sold in South East Asia allowed thieves to hijack around $102 million in crypto from their owners. News has since emerged that other Ledger wallets sold in Germany also contain implants.
The hardware implants were originally found on an unknown number of Ledger Nano X wallets sold by Crypto Bilis, an authorized Ledger reseller based in Malaysia. Ledger said the implants were found on a limited number of devices, all sold by the same seller. However, a device owner in Europe says he found an implant on a Nano X bought at a large European electronics chain store in August, and a second one bought this weekend at another store in the same chain. He believes this indicates that Ledger's supply chain has been compromised. Users and researchers have also reported implants in Ledger Flex and Ledger Stax devices.
The implants are not the first to be found. Famed hardware hacker Joe Grand found implants on several Nano X wallets earlier this year and notified Ledger in March, raising questions about the company's urgency. The implants Grand discovered were in wallets sold by unauthorized online sellers. The newer implants, found in wallets sold by Crypto Bilis and the European chain, suggest attackers may now be deliberately compromising wallets sold by authorized resellers to exploit customer trust. Researchers say the attackers have also become more skilled and systematic, making the implants harder to detect.
Blockchain research company Bitquery reports that crypto was stolen from about 315 accounts connected to compromised Crypto Bilis devices, currently valued at around $102 million. The stolen funds include Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tron. Some funds have been frozen, and others appear in accounts flagged for fraud. It is unclear whether owners who bought devices from other sellers were also affected. Ledger has asked Crypto Bilis to halt all sales and shipments of Ledger devices during an investigation. A user named Johannes said he bought a Nano X in person from a Media Markt store in Germany, which is listed as an authorized Ledger reseller, and found it contained an implant.
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