Post
Topic
Board Hardware wallets
Re: Hardware wallets vs. airgap machines; supply-chain attacks; forward/backward sec
by
Kogs
on 23/03/2018, 07:05:27 UTC

Do they claim their hardware to be unhackable!?


More or less they were claiming that it's unhackable, and that's my only issue with them.
https://www.ledger.fr/2015/03/27/how-to-protect-hardware-wallets-against-tampering/

Quote from: link above
There is absolutely no way that an attacker could replace the firmware and make it pass attestation, without knowing the Ledger private key.

This claim was proven false now.

Nevertheless in my opinion I still think a hardware wallet is more secure than any other wallets when used safely.
Just that hardware wallets do have security issues does not make any other type of wallet which have MORE security issues suddenly better.

My ranking of wallets in terms of security would be the following

  • Hardware wallets
    If you don't take them outside of your home and attacker don't get physical access they are pretty safe -> with physical access as proven now it might not be safe
  • Paper wallets
    If they are kept hidden in a secret place -> but with physical access by an attacker -> no security at all.
    If people carry them around I consider them worse than any mobile wallets (they do at least have a pin to secure the wallet).
  • Airgapped PCs
    Pretty safe as long as an attacker don't get pyhsical access. I consider them worse than a hardware wallet because a PC/MAC/whatever even if not connected to the big world has a much bigger attack vector than a hardware wallet if getting pyhsical access.
  • Any local hot wallets on PC/MAC
    With spyware or other malicious software these wallets can be easily compromised. No physical access necessary
  • Any mobile wallets
    The security of such wallets is usually quite bad. Usually very short pin-codes are used to secure the wallet. As it's easy to lose them an attacker can get physical access to it.
  • Online wallets where you control the private keys
  • Online wallets where you don't control the private keys

Did I miss any type of wallet?

Beside of my listed ranking anyone can (and should) improve the security by combining several methods above and use multi signature addresses. In this case it is not possible to steal funds if just one of the methods is compromised.

Would be interested if someone has a different ranking than me.