Chip Used By Many Android Smartphones Vulnerable To Physical Attacks In Potential Threat To Users' Crypto, Ledger Warns
Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below.
Smartphone security concerns should not be limited to software alone, cryptocurrency hardware wallet provider Ledger has warned.
It said the Mediatek Dimensity 7300 chip used in many Android smartphones, including Motorola, Oppo and Xiaomi devices, was vulnerable to physical attacks. The company’s findings mark a potential risk to users who hold cryptocurrencies on the devices.
Ledger said it gained control of the chip by using carefully calibrated electromagnetic pulses to bypass security checks and access the chip’s data and overwrite critical code.
Don't Miss:
The AI Marketing Platform Backed by Insiders from Google, Meta, and Amazon — Invest at $0.85/Share
Deloitte's #1 Fastest-Growing Software Company Lets Users Earn Money Just by Scrolling — Accredited Investors Can Still Get In at $0.50/Share.
The exploit has a success rate of between 0.1% to 1%, Ledger said. However, the company added that it could be easily repeated by restarting the device, making the exploit possible within minutes.
“This experiment confirmed what we very strongly suspected, namely that even complex chips built on the most advanced process nodes can be vulnerable to fault injection, using the very same tools that have been developed and open-sourced by the Ledger Donjon,” the company said.
Ledger said the experiment took roughly three months to plan and execute from February to early May.
Mediatek reportedly said hardware attacks like the one demonstrated by Ledger were “out of the scope” for the Mediatek Dimensity 7300 chip. Mediatek said the chipset was designed for consumer products, not for financial or hardware security applications.
Trending: 7 Million Gamers Already Trust Gameflip With Their Digital Assets — Now You Can Own a Stake in the Platform
Mediatek did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Benzinga.
Ledger in its report touted hardware wallets that used secure elements, which are believed to be tamper-resistant processor chips, as a better alternative for cryptocurrency users.
Ledger’s report comes amid a surge in physical attacks against cryptocurrency investors over the past year.
Most recently, the son of the deputy mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine, Sergey Kuzmin, was reportedly brutally murdered for his cryptocurrency holdings. Danilo Kuzmin, who was studying in Vienna, was severely beaten and burned alive in a car, according to media reports.
Amid the surge in attacks, members of the cryptocurrency community have warned others against flaunting or boasting about their cryptocurrency wealth. Self-defense seminars have also reportedly become part of cryptocurrency conferences.
Read Next:
Buffett's Secret to Wealth? Private Real Estate—Get Institutional Access Yourself
Wall Street's $12B Real Estate Manager Is Opening Its Doors to Individual Investors — Without the Crowdfunding Middlemen
Image: Shutterstock
This article Chip Used By Many Android Smartphones Vulnerable To Physical Attacks In Potential Threat To Users' Crypto, Ledger Warns originally appeared on Benzinga.com
© 2025 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.