While blockchain technology and digital currencies are celebrated across the globe, the issue of security is still a concern among many. Blockchain and digital currencies have greatly revolutionized many industries. Since their emergence, several industries use digital currencies as a means of payment. Blockchain has several use cases. The recent launch of the HTC blockchain phone shows that the technology has found its way into the phone manufacturing industry.
Bitcoin (BTC) is the largest digital currency in the crypto space. It is also the most dominant digital currency in the world. Many believe in the digital currency, and this has resulted in several BTC price predictions over the past years. However, many are still concerned about how secure the technology is. They discussed part of this in the San Francisco Blockchain week.
Trezor Defends Its Bitcoin (BTC) and Digital Currency Wallet
Speaking at the MIT Bitcoin Expo this week, Charles Guillemet gave an outrageous presentation. Guillemet is the chief security officer of Ledger. During the presentation, Guillemet presented supposed susceptibilities with the hardware crypto wallet manufactured by Trezor. In a new blog post, Trezor said that all the attack vectors listed could not be remotely exploited.
In a statement, Trezor said:
“We were surprised when Ledger announced this issue at the MIT Bitcoin Expo. Especially after being asked by the firm not to disclose the issue. Since Ledger is having talks with ST (chip manufacturer) at the moment, we are going to refrain from any vital information. The reason is that this attack vector is also resource intensive. Manipulating such attacks requires laboratory-level equipment.”
Neither Ledger or Trezor have divulged much information about the susceptibility outside of the content of the video. The information disclosed is that it is related to a chip manufactured by a French hardware component manufacturer – ST Microelectronics. According to the makers of Trezor – SatoshiLabs – the susceptibility goes is way beyond just digital currency wallets. They added that even top digital currency trading platforms use hardware wallets for cold storage. Even if it needs extreme knowledge and laboratory level equipment, the reward is large enough that people would attack them if they could.
Supply chain attack
Guillemet pointed out to several attack vectors for digital currency hardware wallets. One of the attack vectors he pointed out is “supply chain attack.” Supply chain attacks have to do with compromising the device itself. The chief security officer of Ledger said that Trezor knows that their products have counterfeits.
The CSO said:
“But why does it matter? It matters a lot because I can insert some sort of backdoor in this white device. You can add backdoors to the device in several ways.”
The issues that usually accompany tampered-with or counterfeit digital currency hardware wallets are countless. It is easier for hackers to create pre-seeded wallets. All digital currency hardware wallets are somewhat prone to some sort of physical attack. Nevertheless, a lot of digital currency users don’t see physical threats as the fundamental reason for losing their money. The attack vectors pointed out by Ledger are mostly hypothetical. They cannot occur without physical access to the hardware device.
Bitcoin (BTC) Price Today – BTC / USD
| Name | Price | 24H % |
|---|---|---|
 | $0.00 | -0.15% |
Bitcoin (BTC) is currently changing hands at $3,952 after an increase of less than one percent over the past day. The current market cap of the digital currency is $68.21 billion with a trading volume of $4.61 billion over the past day.
Brian Lubin is a Crypto News Reporter for Smartereum. He's well-known for his reports on the crypto markets.
