Trezor Responds To Allegations of Security Issues Raised By Ledger: Are Hardware Wallets Safe?

By Prashant Jha

Recently, the top two hardware wallets of the crypto market have found themselves in the midst of a minor feud with Ledger highlighting security flaws in the Trezor wallet in a 10th March #MITBitcoinExpo report. Trezor has come back with a defence. In the light of this intriguing exchange, we cannot help but wonder: how safe are our crypto wallets? We frequently believe hardware wallets to be the safest of the lot. How true is that assumption?

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In their side of the story, Ledger had alleged that Trezor fell short in terms of security in about five fields, including key areas such as counterfeiting attacks,side-channel attacks and PIN thefts.

Now, Trezor has responded with a blog post published on its official website, on the 12th March, arguing against the allegation and addressing all the concerns raised by Ledger.

The main point of contention for Trezor seems to have been that most security issues brought up by Ledger are the result of in-person, physical and tangible attacks.

They have argued that the vast majority of crypto users are far more concerned about online attacks and hacks carried out remotely than they are about physical attacks on their crypto wallets, which they anyway store quite carefully and in a safe physical location.

The post explained this in the following words, citing suitable statistics:

“We would like to highlight the fact that none of these attacks are exploitable remotely. All of the demonstrated attack vectors require physical access to the device, specialized equipment, time, and technical expertise.

Based on this basic logical premise, the Trezor post further explained:

“That is why we believe that these issues are of lower significance for the absolute majority of hardware wallet users. This was confirmed by the recent study carried out in partnership with Binance, where only 5,93% of respondents consider physical attack as the biggest threat to their cryptocurrencies, compared to 66% of respondents that stated that they consider remote attacks as a primary threat. These 5,93% can be protected by using passphrase, which covers the physical security of both the device and the recovery seed.”

In the light of this exchange, the question arises if our crypto wallets are genuinely safe. It seems you can never be cautious enough and that hardware wallets often do not account for physical risks. In the light of this fact, it is advisable to be extra careful with your hardware wallets, storing them with as much care as you would in the case of actual gold.