US-based cybersecurity firm Unciphered claims to have successfully hacked the Trezor T hardware cryptocurrency wallet by exploiting a hardware vulnerability.
Popular hardware wallet compromises are made possible by physically isolating devices using highly specialized equipment.
In other words, compromising a hardware wallet only works if the attacker has physical possessions and access to sophisticated tools and knowledge.
For example, Unciphered, which specializes in recovering locked cryptocurrencies when passphrases are lost or forgotten, said it had permission to use an “in-house exploit” technique that could extract the wallet’s firmware.
This, the company claims, eventually allowed him to crack his PIN code and seed phrase needed to access funds stored on the device.
Trezor T is one of the most popular crypto hardware wallets on the market today, developed by the Czech Republic-based company Satoshi Lab.
The full process of extracting seed phrases from treasure was published on YouTube by Unciphered.
As soon as news of the hack broke, members of the cryptocurrency community on Twitter were quick to point out that a similar hack was carried out by experts at hardware wallet maker Ledger in 2019.
Among those who pointed this out was Bitcoin community veteran and CEO of Bitcoin hardware wallet maker Coinkite, Rodolfo Novak (also known as NVK).
However, according to Unciphered, the old vulnerabilities have already been addressed by Trezor, and no one has yet hacked the updated version of the hardware wallet with the new firmware.