#1530 – The Expat Files: Security, Culture, and Life in Latin America

But something terrifying happened recently with the Ledger stuff.

Millions of dollars in crypto got hacked from Ledger wallets in just the last month or so.

And that scares the shit out of people.

So what do you do if you've got a Ledger wallet and you hear that? Well, let me ease your mind a little bit about that.

It's not that Ledger got hacked, the actual Ledger software and firmware system.

No, that didn't get hacked.

But here's what happened, and it is scary.

About two years ago, a company or a group of people, and most people think it's Chinese guys, they bought up a couple of retail outfits that were stocking Ledger wallets, you know.

Like, for example, you know you could buy a ledger on Amazon or a Trezor.

Well, this little tale I'm telling right now will certainly warn you against that.

Never buy a hardware wallet from a third party.

Always directly from the company.

So anyway, a couple of years ago, and who knew this back then? We're just finding this out now.

Some no-good Nick Tech guy bought out some retail outlets that had stocked a whole bunch of ledgers.

Chinese guys.

They took all those ledgers, thousands of them, implanted a little device inside of them, A tiny little circuit, a device that would read and transmit all your keystrokes.

Then they reassembled them, repackaged them like new in ledger boxes, etc.

Put them out for sale in various outlets.

So it's those ledger devices with the implant that are getting hacked.

Bottom line, you're safe if you bought your ledger two years ago or more.

And even if you bought one last week, if you bought it direct from ledger, from their website, you got no problem at all.

It's if you bought it from a third party, like, for example, Amazon or eBay or any of a hundred other retail outlets.

I'd immediately be kind of worried.

By the way, so far, the only reported ledger hacks came from people buying from a Southeast Asian reseller called Crypto Billis.

And it's not been disclosed how many devices were modified or what percentage of Ledger wallets they represent.