Trezor has confirmed that three of its Safe 5 hardware wallets contained malicious circuit board implants capable of stealing cryptocurrency recovery phrases and transmitting them over a mobile network to an attacker-controlled server. The company published its investigation findings on November 13 and released a firmware patch two days earlier that neutralizes the implants found so far.
All three affected devices were purchased from CryptoBilis, a Malaysia-based hardware wallet retailer operating across Southeast Asia, between August 20 and September 23, 2026. No customers who bought from other regional resellers have been flagged, and no affected CryptoBilis customer has reported stolen funds so far.
How the Implant Works
The malicious component is a secondary circuit board installed between the Safe 5's main board and its display. It does not touch the legitimate firmware or the wallet's Secure Element, which is precisely what makes it difficult to catch through standard software checks. Instead, it sits passively and watches the screen.
When a user sets up a new wallet or restores an existing one, the implant reads the recovery words as they appear on the display. It can also capture passphrases. Once it has what it needs, it encrypts the data and sends it over a mobile network to a remote server. If the device has no mobile connection at that moment, the implant holds the data and keeps attempting transmission until it goes through.
The design mirrors what security researchers at Tibane Labs found inside tampered Ledger wallets traced to the same reseller weeks earlier. In those devices, the implants used an eSIM and a shielded LTE module alongside a microcontroller, with chip markings scraped off in at least one variant to slow identification.
How Trezor Found Them
The investigation began in October 2026 after a customer reported finding an unfamiliar circuit board inside a Safe 5 purchased from CryptoBilis. At the time, Trezor had not yet received the physical device and could not confirm what the implant was actually doing. It issued a warning and asked CryptoBilis customers to get in touch.
Forty-eight customers responded. Trezor examined some devices directly in its lab and checked others by reviewing photographs of internal components submitted by owners. That process turned up two more compromised wallets beyond the original one.
The Fix and What It Cannot Do
Firmware version 2.13.1, released on November 11, is designed to block the specific implants Trezor has examined from reading information off updated devices. The company described the patch as making "the current batch of implants useless."
There is an important limit to what the update can accomplish. If a device was implanted and a user set it up or restored a wallet before installing the firmware, the recovery phrase was already captured and sent. The patch stops future captures but cannot retrieve data that has already left the device.
Trezor is advising everyone who purchased a Safe 5 from CryptoBilis to move their funds to a new wallet generated with a freshly created recovery phrase. The company is offering replacement devices to any customer who bought from CryptoBilis since March 2026, including those whose devices have not been confirmed compromised.
CryptoBilis sits at the center of a supply chain problem that has now touched two of the most recognized hardware wallet brands. Ledger confirmed implants in its own devices sold through the same reseller in early October, shortly after users began reporting fund losses. Ledger's investigation showed that all reported drains traced back to CryptoBilis, and the company asked the retailer to stop selling and shipping its products.
Tampered Ledger devices were reportedly sold at roughly half the standard retail price, which in hindsight was a signal that something was wrong with how those units were sourced.
Trezor had already announced plans in October to tighten its reseller network following the Ledger reports, before its own implants were confirmed. It has since cut approximately 80 percent of its global reseller partners. The company said the removed resellers were not themselves untrustworthy, but that they did not meet the stricter supply-chain security requirements Trezor put in place after the CryptoBilis situation came to light. Remaining partners now face tighter controls over how devices are sourced, stored, and physically handled before they reach customers.
What Buyers Should Do
Anyone who purchased a Trezor wallet from CryptoBilis is being directed to contact Trezor directly. Those who set up or restored a wallet on the device before the November 11 firmware update should treat their current recovery phrase as exposed and generate a new one on a trusted device. Trezor's recommendation is to move funds before doing anything else.
