Trezor has confirmed that hidden circuit boards were planted inside three of its Trezor Safe 5 hardware wallets sold by CryptoBilis, a former authorized reseller in Southeast Asia, turning devices built to protect crypto into tools that could hand recovery phrases straight to attackers.
In a November 12 investigation update, the Czech wallet maker said its lab examined the first reported device and identified two more tampered units from photos their owners sent in. All three were bought between August 20 and September 23, 2026, through CryptoBilis’s Tokopedia and Shopee stores or directly from the reseller. None of the three owners has lost funds, according to Trezor.
Trezor also said it released firmware 2.13.1 on November 11 with a protection that stops the implants found so far from capturing anything, which the company said makes “the current batch of implants useless.”
A spy board wedged behind the screen
Trezor’s embedded team extracted and analyzed the firmware from the implant in the original device. The company said the implant is an extra circuit board fitted between the Safe 5’s main board and its display.
The board only listens. It copies everything on the screen, including what the owner types, and does not modify the wallet’s firmware or its Secure Element. When recovery words appear, the implant recognizes and stores them. That covers the words a wallet shows while creating a new backup and the words an owner types while restoring an existing wallet onto the device. It does the same with a passphrase if one appears on screen.
Captured data is encrypted and sent over the mobile network, using a cellular module and antenna on the board, to a server controlled by the attackers. If it cannot connect, it keeps the data and retries until it succeeds.
Trezor said the implant “works the same way as the implants found in Ledger devices, adapted to the Trezor Safe 5’s display.” That ties the case to the spy chips Ledger confirmed in wallets sold through CryptoBilis in October, which were linked to real thefts.
How the firmware fix works
Because the implant never touches the device’s software, it cannot simply be patched away. A Trezor spokesperson said, according to reports, that the implant watches communication between the wallet’s microcontroller and its display and triggers when it sees a specific sequence. Firmware 2.13.1 changes the order of the commands sent to the display, which breaks that trigger without changing what the owner sees on screen.
The fix has a hard limit. Trezor warned that the update “can’t protect a wallet backup that was captured before it.” Any recovery phrase that appeared on a tampered device before the update should be treated as exposed.
From one tip to three confirmed devices
The incident traces back to early October. On October 9, Ledger began investigating fund losses among customers who had bought devices from CryptoBilis. Trezor dropped CryptoBilis as a reseller the same day.
On October 28, a Trezor customer in Indonesia reported an implant in a Safe 5 bought from CryptoBilis through Tokopedia in August. Trezor published a warning on October 30 before it had the device in hand, saying waiting for lab confirmation would leave buyers exposed. The customer had already moved his funds before finding the board.
Since then, 48 CryptoBilis customers have contacted Trezor, which is checking their devices in its lab or from photos. Devices from its other resellers in the region showed no tampering, and no implant has been found in any other Trezor model.
Trezor cuts 80% of its resellers
Trezor has cut its reseller network by about 80%. The company said the removed partners were trustworthy and posed no immediate threat, but did not fit the stricter rules remaining resellers must now follow on how devices are sourced, stored and accessed.
Trezor is working with SEAL 911, the Security Alliance’s emergency response service, and plans to update its official investigation post if it confirms an implant outside CryptoBilis, in another model, or any lost funds.
CryptoBilis had not issued any public statement at time of publication. No group has been publicly linked to the implants, and Trezor said in October that it does not know who is behind them.
What CryptoBilis buyers should do now
Based on Trezor’s guidance, anyone who bought a Trezor from CryptoBilis from March 2026 onward, on any marketplace, should take these steps:
- Move funds to a new wallet with a new recovery phrase. Restoring the old phrase on another device does not fix the problem.
- Do not set up an unused CryptoBilis device, and never type an existing recovery phrase into one.
- Keep firmware current. Version
2.13.1blocks the known implants, but it cannot protect a phrase captured earlier. - Do not weigh or open the device to check it. Trezor says neither is a reliable test.
- Keep the device and contact Trezor Support. Buyers since March 2026 are eligible for a replacement, a different model with a refund of the price difference, or a refund.
Trezor also warned that scammers may pose as the company to offer replacements or refunds, and said it will never ask for a recovery phrase. Wallet owners have faced similar lures after the Trezor ShipMonk data breach that expanded to more than 80,000 customers, and from apps like the fake Ledger Live app that drained $9.5 million.
