Ledger demanded to stop sales of wallets in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong due to attacks on the supply chain and theft of $100 million
The French manufacturer of hardware wallets Ledger has addressed authorized resellers, distributors and retail chains with an urgent demand to immediately suspend sales of all device models and remove them from displays while an internal investigation is conducted. As reported by the specialized publication ForkLog, citing an official statement from the company’s security service dated October 14, 2026, preventive measures affected seven key markets in the Asia-Pacific region: Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Hong Kong.
The reason for the unprecedented step was a series of confirmed incidents of unauthorized write-off of digital assets from end buyers. According to preliminary estimates by independent experts in on-chain forensics, the total damage from emptying wallets in the countries of Southeast Asia has already exceeded the threshold of $100 million. The company emphasized that the identified incidents are strictly localized geographically and do not affect devices purchased in other regions of the world or ordered directly through the manufacturer’s official online store.
What is the threat of a physical attack on the supply chain?
The report from cybersecurity analysts emphasizes that the compromise occurred at the physical distribution level:
- Geography of sales blocking: Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Hong Kong
- Threat type: physical modification of chips (Supply Chain Attack) before retail sale
- Cumulative identified damage: over $100 million in Bitcoin, Ethereum and stablecoins
- Manufacturer infrastructure status: internal servers, Secure Element chips and cloud services are not compromised
Interference with hardware from unofficial intermediaries
According to preliminary data, attackers have infiltrated the supply chain between regional wholesale warehouses and small retailers. Fraudsters opened the original packaging, soldered printed circuit board components, or replaced microcontrollers, turning cold storage into a trap with pre-installed private keys or a hidden channel for remote interception of a mnemonic seed phrase during initial initialization.
Reliability of Secure Element chips and official supply channel
Experts emphasize that the Secure Element (ST33) cryptographic coprocessor, used in the flagship Ledger models, maintains absolute mathematical strength. The firmware architecture itself was not hacked – the attack exploited the blind trust of users in the integrity of the physical case when purchasing gadgets through marketplaces and third-party shopping pavilions.
What is the real scope of the investigation and what should users do?
The Ledger Donjon Security Laboratory has begun an in-depth engineering analysis of all seized samples:
Expertise in the Ledger Donjon laboratory
The company’s specialized division for hacking and auditing Donjon security systems has already received the first batches of compromised devices from Singapore and Bangkok. Engineers conduct fluoroscopy and microelectronic analysis of boards to establish the exact intervention technology and restore the chronology of the passage of each serial number through intermediary logistics hubs.
Guidelines for Authentication and Asset Rescue
Owners of wallets purchased in the past six months in these Asian jurisdictions are strongly advised to immediately stop using them. If funds have already been transferred to the device, experts advise immediately creating a temporary address in a trusted non-custodial software application or on a verified multi-sig wallet and transfer the entire balance without waiting for the completion of investigative actions. Also a mandatory step is to check the digital signature of the firmware through the Ledger Live application upon connection.
How will the local crisis affect the cryptocurrency hardware storage market?
Massive supply chain compromise in Southeast Asia changes trust architecture in hardware storage industry:
Review of contracts with independent resellers
The incident dealt a serious reputational blow to the institution of authorized distributors in Asia. Analysts predict that leading hardware wallet vendors will switch to a model of exclusively direct delivery by postal courier services from the factory to the customer’s hands, introducing holographic microseals with NFC verification to confirm the integrity of the box before opening.
Growing interest in open source solutions and multi-sig custody
What happened stimulates investors to diversify the risks of the only hardware vendor. In the institutional and premium retail segment, an accelerated transition to multisig storage (Multisig) and distributed computing MPC is expected, where a transaction requires confirmation from several independent devices of different brands, which completely eliminates the threat of hacking of a single compromised physical gadget.
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