Ledger Hardware Implant Confirmed: What Wallet Users Should Check

0:00 Okay, guys, we've got a really serious security thing that we're looking at here around the Ledger hardware device. Now, we've been told for many years that the most secure way to store your crypto assets is off an exchange and on a cold storage device such as a Ledger. And what we're finding here at the moment is this announcement from various community members in the space that these particular devices are Some of them have been going out with malicious hardware attached to them. So this post here looks at Mark Karpeles is looking and investigating this particular hardware edition. And it is an extra bit of hardware that's been added to these Legendana devices that have been sold by CryptoBillis in Southeast Asia. Now, when you're buying

0:52 these hardware devices, it's probably best to buy them directly from the source. And I'll talk about that in a second, because there's some issues with that too. But if we have a look further down here, some other people have been putting up the hardware that they've been finding, and it is an extra bit of hardware that is attached to the device itself that has an eSIM built into it.

1:14 And this eSIM is listening in on what's happening with the device, then broadcasting it via the SIM card. And that's pretty malicious there. So it can see any of the transactions that are happening on the device. And most likely the seed phrases. And that is how the hacks have been happening. And from what I've read around 80 million has been sent out from this particular hack. So 80 million worth of crypto assets have been stolen. So this particular person here from what I've read was investigating and looking into why was this extra bit of hardware here?

1:49 Is it only these local devices that are in Southeast Asia that were being sold? Or is it a broader, wider thing that is happening at the moment? And they did narrow it down to the Southeast Asian retailer. But in announcing it, it had tipped off the hackers and they had liquidated all the wallets that they had compromised.

2:10 So that is a crazy, crazy event. So this particular part of the device here, this one here, if you're opening up your Legend Nano, this is what you're looking for. That is the hacker's device. You can see here there's some really bad soldering on the device itself. It's got some flux that's a little bit messy, and this particular part here is the eSIM, and it looks like they've scratched off the serial numbers. So at a glance, if you're trying to look at the serial numbers and the markings on the chip, you'll be able to look up and see what it is. And if you saw that it's an eSIM inside my ledger, what's going on here? So, you know, that's why they scratched it off. So you continue using it, even though that you don't know what

2:57 it is. But, you know, if you see a scratched off chip in your device, it should raise suspicions anyway. But now people are recommending that you actually open up your ledger device, have a look at what's inside and make sure that it doesn't have that extra bit of hardware in there, which is absolutely insane for what I think.

3:18 But let me show you something here, guys. This is an email that I got from Ledger this morning, or Ledger, I should say. And the timing of this is crazy because this is what this particular email says here. Let me just zoom in on that. So this is an email from Ledger talking about Claude 5.5 and GPT-6 being a threat. But if you look at who it's actually from, it's from Hive Management. It's hivemanagement.ci. That's not the real Ledger address. So now we are looking at, you know, scams from the emails. And this came about when Ledger was hacked and their email databases were hacked and were being used to actually spam and attack people this way as well. So they'll send out messages saying, hey, your

4:05 Ledger Nano device needs updates. Update here. You click on it. Takes you to a malicious site. You install malicious firmware and your device is hacked. So you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. So it's a really malicious way of going about it. So what's the safest way? What can you actually do to stay safe and secure? Well, there is a big push at the moment to try and get the Ledger Nanos to be fully open source.

4:31 So you can actually see how the device is built, what's in it, its firmware and everything else. This is the device I'm using at the moment. And this guy here, this is a Keystone hardware wallet. This is what I use for signing DREP transactions and all that. It's just easier because it uses QR codes and it has the entire transaction within the QR code itself. So it makes things a little bit easier in that regards to signing Cardano transactions in particular because they're so long and you have to press so many buttons on the ledger. But the Keystone makes that process really easy. Now, the other thing that I've been told at the moment now also is to look into paper wallets. Now, with a paper wallet,

5:10 you're creating a wallet system within the crypto blockchain's ecosystem itself. So if you're on Bitcoin, you can create a paper wallet there. If you're on Cardano, you can create a paper wallet there. And it's a really safe way of storing your assets. You can encrypt the private key and all that. So it's a really good way of going about it and you can store that offline. It never is online and you just put your assets into it.

5:32 So that is probably the most secure way at the moment because it's offline. It's not using or compromised by someone else's email database. So you don't get wrench attacked, which is what you're seeing in Europe, in France at the moment, which is a lot of attacks on crypto founders and whatnot. And then you are protected in those regards.

5:59 Have a look into these other options, guys. So have a look at the paper wallets first as an option to store your crypto assets. look at the Keystone hardware wallet. I've got affiliate links down below. I do get paid commission for those particular wallets, but it's a wallet that you can verify everything, the hardware, the firmware, and the software, everything about it can be checked so that you know you're using something safe and secure. And if you're using a ledger device, pull it apart, have a look at what's inside it so you know how it works, if that extra bit of hardware is in there. So you may very well have been compromised a long time ago and they're just sitting and waiting on those particular assets.

6:37 So I'll put links to all this down below for you guys. So you can check out how to check your device, what bits of hardware you're looking for and anything else, any other news updates around this. But from last read, it was around 80 million that was stolen from compromised ledger accounts. Now I do these videos on a regular basis to keep you guys up to date with everything that's happening. I do all these interviews. And I don't get paid for any of this. All my revenue primarily comes from the YouTube ads and sale of NFTs.

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7:32 And it keeps me going, keeps me motivated and keeps me producing these videos for you guys. If you can't afford that, that's totally fine. You don't need to don't feel guilty that you can't, but if you can at least hit that like and subscribe button, it helps with the algorithm and it helps me get these videos out there for the community. Now with that out of the way, let's get back to it. Okay. Wild times guys. Now, in further updates, I will be talking about some really interesting Cardano news updates, some updates around Midnight, the privacy chain as well, and everything that's come out from Token 2049 last week. I was there and there was a lot going on. So I'll keep you guys up to date with that. So make sure you hit that thumbs up, like, subscribe,

8:14 notification bell. I'll keep you guys up to date with that. Stay positive, guys. Somehow we can. And I'll see you in the next video.