In this article5 sections
A tampered Ledger hardware wallet bought from the European consumer electronics chain MediaMarkt appears to carry an implant similar to one found in devices shipped in Asia, according to Cointelegraph’s Hodler’s Digest.
The European buyer, who posts as Johannes, said he purchased the device two weeks ago. He reported no funds were taken and said the implant looked like an earlier version of the one tied to CryptoBilis devices sold in Asia, where estimated losses have already reached $93.4 million across 471 addresses, per the cybersecurity outlet Yfarmx. Ledger has not confirmed that estimate, nor has it confirmed the reported European device belongs to the same attack.
Also read: Ledger Probes $86M Theft as CZ Flags Supply Chain Attack
Key facts
- An estimated $93.4 million has been taken from Asian hardware wallet users in the tampered Ledger attack, according to Yfarmx, a figure Ledger has not confirmed.
- Former Mt Gox CEO Mark Karpeles, whose investigations helped expose the Asian devices, said the antenna in the European unit is marked as the “Eurasian version.”
- Veria Labs received a $250,000 bounty for an XRP overflow bug that could have created more than 18 trillion XRP — 184 times the total supply — patched by RippleX three days after it was reported on September 22.
- At the end of the week Bitcoin was down 2.8% at $83,435, Ethereum down 6.5% at $2,562 and XRP down 7% at $1.40.
- Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said crypto’s heavy backing of Republicans has alienated Democrats whose votes are needed to pass federal crypto legislation.
Separate implants for separate regions
The attack drew attention after devices from CryptoBilis — an authorized Ledger reseller listed in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, and recently sold to a new owner — were found to have been modified so attackers could read the seed phrase and steal funds even while the device still passed authenticity checks.
Ledger asked CryptoBilis to halt sales and shipments as a precaution and advised customers who bought from the reseller in the past 90 days to consider moving assets to a new Ledger. In its latest update the company said the volume of impacted devices is limited.
Also read: Ledger Theft Hits $91M as CryptoBilis Reseller Probed
For Johannes, the reason nothing was stolen may be simple. As he put it, either the device didn’t work or the attackers were waiting for wider use of the compromised units. Karpeles’ observation about the antenna frequency suggests the group behind the tampering has prepared regional variants of the same hardware.
An AI agent finds a 2015 XRP flaw
Security firm Veria Labs was paid a $250,000 bounty for an overflow bug that had sat hidden in XRP’s code since 2015. Co-founder Cayden Liao said the firm’s AI agent scanned rippled, the software running the XRP Ledger, and found two bugs that were individually low severity. Chained together, he said, a single transaction could have minted more than 18 trillion XRP — 184 times the total supply — putting XRP’s full $94 billion market capitalization at risk. The bugs were reported on September 22 and RippleX patched them three days later. There is no evidence the flaw was ever exploited.
Why it matters
Hardware wallets exist to keep seed phrases offline, so an implant that survives authentication checks attacks the assumption buyers are paying for. The Asian losses show how far the consequences can run when a single reseller’s supply chain is compromised, and the reported European unit suggests the same technique is not geographically contained.
The XRP disclosure points in a different direction: a bug dormant for more than a decade, found by an automated agent rather than a human reviewer. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin backed researcher Justin Drake’s call for the industry to prepare a “bunker mode” against AI-accelerated math, writing that he does not recommend anyone rush to move funds but that the cryptographic risk should be taken seriously.
What to watch
Ledger has yet to confirm whether the MediaMarkt unit is part of the same campaign, and whether the implant reaches other regional resellers will depend on its forensics. On the policy side, Cuomo’s remarks point to the coming US midterm results — prediction markets put the odds of Democrats winning both chambers at about 61% — as the variable that decides whether federal crypto legislation advances.
Reported by cointelegraph.com.
Source: Cointelegraph