How a hidden implant in some Ledger wallets stole recovery phrases
Ledger says some devices sold by reseller CryptoBilis carried a cellular implant that read the 24-word phrase off the screen.
Updated
Ledger says some of its hardware wallets sold through CryptoBilis, a Southeast Asian reseller, were tampered with somewhere along the supply chain. According to Ledger’s Donjon security team, an implant hidden inside the case read the 24-word recovery phrase off the screen during setup and sent it out over a cellular (LTE) connection using an eSIM. Ledger says the implant did not modify the device’s Secure Element or operating system, and did not alter transactions or signatures.
As of Oct. 13, 2026, Ledger said every confirmed loss in the incident involved a device sold by CryptoBilis, and that it had seen no sign its own systems were compromised. It has not confirmed how many people were affected or how much was taken; on-chain researchers’ estimates put the losses at roughly $86 million to $93 million. Separately, retailer MediaMarkt Saturn stopped selling Ledger devices after a customer in Germany reported a tampered unit; Ledger said no loss of funds had been reported in that case.
Ledger’s advice to anyone who bought from the reseller: don’t set up unused devices, and move funds from any device already in use to a new one with a freshly generated recovery phrase. The wider lesson applies to every brand: a hardware wallet’s security starts before you open the box, so where you buy it matters as much as how you use it.
Not investment advice. This article is for general information only and does not recommend buying or selling any asset.
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How a hidden implant in some Ledger wallets stole recovery phrases
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