Coldcard Security Vulnerability: What You Need to Know
If you generated your seed words on a Coldcard WITHOUT rolling a die 100+ times yourself AND without adding a strong passphrase as your 25th word, your wallet may be vulnerable. This affects all Coldcard devices. The device didn't use sufficient entropy on its own, meaning someone could potentially recreate your seed.
What are your options?
1) Move your funds immediately. Transfer your bitcoin to another wallet. Sparrow, your own node, Aqua, or almost anywhere else. This is a temporary fix, but it gets your funds out of harm's way. Practice standard security hygiene with wherever you park them.
2) Update and regenerate. Flash your Coldcard to the latest firmware, then generate a brand new wallet by manually rolling dice 100+ times and adding a strong passphrase. This significantly improves your security, but honestly, after a vulnerability like this, it's hard to fully trust the device again.
3) Get a Bitkey from Block. No seed words, no passphrases. All complexity is hidden. It uses multi-sig for security instead, and the UX is genuinely great. I've bought several for family members and recommend it highly. Different approach, but rock solid. Literally.
4) Get a Trezor Safe 7. It's a Bitcoin only version from the company that literally invented hardware wallets. I haven't used one personally, but trusted friends and colleagues swear by them, no issues, feel secure.
The bottom line: if you're using a Coldcard with a device generated seed and no passphrase, don't wait. Move your funds and upgrade your setup. Please.
Replies (23)
It's a very good question. Perhaps the best multi-sig is to use three different devices from three different vendors. That's not an easy setup though. BitKey makes it easy.
Hopefully you're safe now my friend.
That's one of the other options to use. Did you want me to list all 57 of them?
Move funds first. Moving out doesn't need new hardware. The seeds are already compromised.
Definitely not strictly against it but still not sure how safe it really is with 2 keys effectively being hot keys etc. Do you know good reviews about them with some real deep dive about this stuff having keys in the cloud, lack of uxto management etc.?
i see that. they are steps and options. my bad for the phrasing.
Unless you're using an old MK3 apparently,
because they won't be updating the firmware.
Correct. Great addition.
Yep, I lost my whole (small) stack. .43 btc gone :(
They have Bitcoin only and then Bitcoin+Shitcoin. Again they invented hardware wallets. They might know a thing or two. And it's open source!
That's what the reports seem to be as this vulnerability came about when Coinkite migrated their code base away from GPL. So prior generations of firmware should be fine. That said, this is a type of event they makes you rethink your setup
Damn. Sorry brother. It will be okay. Fuck life event right now, but things will get better.
It might not be for you, but for others it might be. That's why choice is good.
Shit! I barely got out with a minor theft!
You're safe. 🫂
I said all of these things above. And yes, you do need to be dramatic if people did NOT do these things.
Coldcard Q safe?
no, not safe. if you didnt do at least 100 dice rolls the actual entropy used to create your seed phrase was 32 bit (guessing one person out of half the people on earth) rather than 256 bit (guessing one atom out of all the atoms in the universe) due to a bug in the firmware so the attacker can guess your private key
nothing is safe. the only way to be safe is to roll dice 100+ times to generate your own entropy and generate the seed words from that and to use a secure passphrase. if you did the dice rolls and did not do a passphrase, you're safe, though you have a vulnerability without a passphrase. if you did both dice + passphrase, you're safe.
I find it out: Safe 3 and Safe 5 have the Bitcoin only edition, Safe 7 don't. Not a wonderful news for their flagship product.
I'm not questioning their technical expertise, although I don't think it's directly related to the fact that they invented hardware wallets.
Does it have Bluetooth. Thats a instant no.
This incident should prove that The Bitcoin Only Philosophy is actually less harmful due to less scrutiny.
Multi-coin wallets undergo rigorous evaluation because they’re protecting Multiple Communities assets, if they screw up on even one coin they lose trust for millions.
If anything Multi-coin options are probably more secure in the long run, due to more eyes peer reviewing, and auditing the code.
More scrutiny, pressure, knowledge, and funding.
Toxic Bitcoin Only Thinking will KILL BITCOIN!
Perhaps. We know that dice rolls are fine. Do those and add a passphrase and you'll be fine.
