Hardware wallet supply-chain risks: TON guide 2026

When people say “a hardware wallet is safer than a software one” they mean protection against remote attacks — malware, phishing sites, compromised RPC endpoints. That is true. But between the factory and your desk the device passes through dozens of hands, and every handoff is a potential attack vector. That is the supply-chain risk, and for a TON user in 2026 it is not theoretical.

TL;DR

Tampered devices: resellers on Amazon Marketplace, eBay, Avito and Telegram channels ship Ledger and Trezor units with a seed already generated — the buyer sees a “new” device, funds the address, and the operator drains it.
2020 Ledger leak: 270,000 customer records in public dumps. Phishing campaigns against those records are still active in 2026 — the fifth year running.
Ledger Recover 2023: firmware that lets the seed leave the device via trusted third parties. The mere capability triggered a trust crisis, even for users who never subscribed.
Defense: only the official channel (ledger.com, trezor.io, keystone.sh), seal verification, initialization under your own control, never use a pre-set seed.
For TON: Ledger ships an official TON app reviewed by the TON Foundation. Trezor has no native support — third-party only. Keystone Pro offers QR-air-gap and is a working pick for the paranoid.

A typical threat model has the user defending against three things: malware on the computer, phishing sites, and scam tokens. A hardware wallet covers the first two — the private key never leaves the Secure Element and signatures are physically confirmed on the device. The third layer lives in the owner’s head.

What about everything between the factory and the owner? The device is assembled in China or Vietnam (Ledger), the Czech Republic (Trezor), Taiwan (Keystone). After assembly: a fulfilment center, air freight, customs, a regional warehouse, a courier. Every stage involves humans with physical access to the box. The device is small, the packaging is standard, and the margins on crypto hardware are high enough to motivate an insider.

The deeper problem: the overwhelming majority of buyers don’t know what a normal device initialization looks like and can’t distinguish it from a pre-initialized one. That knowledge is the only real barrier against most supply-chain attacks.

Tampered devices: what gets found in real cases

The attack class is simple. A reseller buys a batch of real Ledger or Trezor units, opens the packaging, initializes each device while recording the seed phrases for themselves, repacks with a lookalike seal, and resells via Amazon, eBay, Avito or Telegram channels as “new sealed”.

The victim receives the device and walks through “setup”: enters a PIN from a slip in the box or from a tampered manual, the wallet derives the same address the attacker already saved. The victim deposits a meaningful sum, and within hours or days the funds move to the attacker.

Known indicators of a tampered Ledger:

On first boot the device goes straight to a PIN prompt instead of offering “Set up as new device / Restore”.
The seal on the box looks intact — a real Ledger seal must tear on opening and cannot reassemble.
The box contains a “seed card” with 24 words already written down — this is a fully attacker-controlled scheme; a genuine Ledger never ships with a pre-filled seed.
The manual recommends a specific PIN or specific words.

Back in 2018 the researcher Saleem Rashid publicly demonstrated a full hardware modification of the Nano S — swapping the microcontroller while preserving the casing. Ledger has since moved to a second-generation Secure Element, partly closing that hole via Genuine Check in Ledger Live. But social-engineering tampered devices, without any hardware modification, still work today.

Counterfeit Trezor and Ledger on marketplaces

Beyond tampered (modified genuine) devices there is counterfeit (full fakes). The casing mimics the design, the screen is cheap, the firmware is a knockoff that generates seed phrases from a limited dictionary known to the attacker.

In 2022 Kaspersky documented a series of Trezor One units out of China with a completely substituted board: the same housing, a different chip inside, the same seed phrase across every unit in the series. Victims bought through Amazon Marketplace and AliExpress.

Counterfeit indicators:

Price more than 20% below the official listing.
The seller isn’t on the manufacturer’s authorized list (ledger.com/reseller, trezor.io/resellers).
The device’s serial number fails Genuine Check in the official app.
Small visual defects on the casing — uneven paint, misaligned seams, blurry typography.

The defense is singular: only the manufacturer’s own site or an explicitly listed authorized reseller. Amazon Marketplace does not count, even when the storefront is named “Ledger Official” — impostor accounts surface there regularly.

Ledger Recover 2023 — what the community pushed back against

In May 2023 Ledger rolled out firmware containing an optional Recover service: for a subscription fee, the device seed is split via Shamir Secret Sharing into three shards, each shard encrypted and entrusted to one of three custodians — Ledger, Coincover, EscrowTech. If the user loses the device, after a KYC flow they can reconstruct the seed across all three.

Functionally, this is useful for non-technical owners terrified of losing a seed. From a threat-model standpoint, it shatters the core promise of a hardware wallet: the seed never leaves the device.

Community objections:

If the firmware is capable of exporting the seed on the owner’s request, then under duress or via a compromised firmware update the seed can leave without consent.
A government order to the three custodians theoretically unlocks any Recover subscriber’s funds.
The mere presence of the code path in firmware shipped to all devices (not only subscribers) means the seed-export logic is physically present on every Ledger.

Ledger tried to publish technical explanations but the sediment stayed. As of 2026 Recover remains opt-in, and the community is split: some moved to open-source alternatives (Trezor, Keystone, ColdCard), others accepted the trade-off.

Ledger DB leak 2020 — the fallout in 2026

In July 2020 Ledger’s customer database was stolen via a compromised marketing-platform API. In December 2020 the dump went public: 272,853 email addresses plus 9,532 full profiles (name, postal address, phone).

What happened next is a multi-year story of its own:

Email phishing: millions of “Your Ledger has been compromised, enter your seed to verify” messages. At the 2021 peak — dozens of emails per day per leaked address.
SMS phishing: attacks against phone numbers from the leak with fake firmware-update links.
Physical mail: in 2022 several users in the US and UK received paper letters with QR codes impersonating Ledger — the QR led to malware install. This works because the attackers know the victims’ full home addresses.
Swatting: isolated cases of false police reports to the victim’s address as psychological pressure before the main attack.

In 2026, campaigns based on this leak are active for a fifth straight year. If you ordered through Ledger’s site before December 2020, your email and possibly home address are public. Defense: a dedicated email for crypto purchases, delivery to a pickup point or PO box, and a strict rule of never responding to any inbound message that asks for the seed.

Defense: where to buy, how to verify, how to initialize

Baseline discipline for any device:

1. Official channel only.

Ledger — ledger.com.
Trezor — trezor.io.
Keystone — keystone.sh.
Authorized resellers — the list lives on the manufacturer’s own site; never “Amazon with a verified seller” or “Avito with good reviews”.

2. Packaging inspection.

The seal must tear on opening and not reassemble.
No pre-filled seed cards in the box. The seed is generated by you and written down by you.
The serial number matches what Genuine Check reports.

3. Initialization under your own control.

On first boot the device MUST offer “Set up as new device” or “Restore from recovery phrase”. If it goes straight to a PIN prompt, it is compromised.
Pick “Set up as new” — the device generates the seed on its own screen. Write it on paper or, better, on a metal plate.
You set the PIN, not the manual in the box.

4. Genuine Check.

Ledger Live, Trezor Suite, and Keystone Companion each include an authenticity check via the secure chip. Run it on first connect — every time.

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If the device is already initialized

If a “new” unit immediately asks for a PIN with no Setup/Restore choice — STOP. The device is compromised. Photograph the packaging, documents and screen, then return it to the seller. Never deposit funds into an address generated by such a device.

TON specifics: Ledger TON app, Trezor via third-party, Keystone Pro

Ledger is the most integrated option in 2026. An official TON app sits in the App Catalog, the code was reviewed by the TON Foundation, and it works with Tonkeeper and MyTonWallet over WebUSB/Bluetooth. The downside is every Ledger supply-chain risk listed above.

Trezor has no native TON support as of 2026. Trezor Suite doesn’t know about TON and Trezor Bridge doesn’t sign TON transactions directly. Using Trezor with TON is only possible through experimental third-party wallet integrations, which lowers the trust level. For TON, Trezor is a compromised pick.

Keystone Pro is an air-gap device — no USB, no Bluetooth, communication is QR-only — and TON is supported via MyTonWallet and Tonhub. Open firmware, a separate Secure Element. Its biggest supply-chain advantage is the absence of a physical interface, which eliminates an entire class of USB attacks, and open firmware allows independent build verification. The downside is a less mature ecosystem and the need to get used to a QR-based flow.

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What to pick for TON in 2026

If you haven’t done a detailed threat-model exercise, get a Ledger Nano S Plus from ledger.com, run Genuine Check, and initialize it yourself. That covers 95% of scenarios. If you’re a public person or your holdings are six figures or more, look at Keystone Pro as an air-gap alternative.

Conclusion

Supply-chain risk is the most underweighted category for hardware-wallet owners. Remote attacks are covered by the hardware, social-engineering attacks are covered by discipline, but between the factory and your desk the device is only as safe as the owner’s attention during unboxing and setup.

Three rules cover the vast majority of the risk: buy direct, verify the seal and Genuine Check, initialize yourself. The 2020 Ledger leak proved the tail of these incidents can stretch for years — five years on, phishing campaigns are still profitable for someone. The 2023 Recover episode is a reminder that trust in a manufacturer is never unconditional.

For a TON user the practical map is clear: Ledger with its full official integration, Keystone Pro for air-gap, Trezor — on hold until native support lands. And either way — seed on metal, in two locations, with a regular review of your cold-storage strategy.