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Ledger Finds Chip Flaw in Trezor Safe 7; No Funds at Risk
Ledger's Donjon team disclosed a laser-based fault injection flaw in Trezor Safe 7's TROPIC01 chip. Trezor says no funds are at risk. The event reshapes cold storage trust calculus.
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Ledger's Donjon security research team disclosed a hardware vulnerability in the TROPIC01 chip used by the Trezor Safe 7 hardware wallet. The flaw involves a laser-based fault injection technique that could theoretically extract the device's seed phrase. Trezor responded by stating that no user funds are at risk and that the attack requires physical access, specialized equipment, and direct chip exposure.
The disclosure creates a specific decision point for hardware wallet buyers. The simple read is that a competitor found a flaw in a rival product, and the vendor says it is not exploitable in practice. The better market read is that this event reshapes the trust calculus in the cold storage market, where security reputation is the primary differentiator.
Why This Flaw Matters for Cold Storage Buyers
Hardware wallets compete almost entirely on security claims. A vulnerability disclosure from a direct competitor – Ledger – carries weight because Donjon is one of the few independent hardware security labs with a public track record. The TROPIC01 chip is a secure element designed to resist physical tampering. A laser fault injection attack bypasses that protection by glitching the chip's voltage at a precise moment during boot, potentially allowing an attacker to read the seed.
Trezor's counterargument rests on two points. First, the attack requires the device to be physically opened and the chip decapsulated, which destroys the wallet's tamper-evident casing. Second, the attacker needs a laser workstation costing tens of thousands of dollars. For a stolen device, the attacker would also need to bypass the PIN. For a device intercepted in transit, the user would notice the opened casing.