Trezor BGP Highjacking/DNS Poisoning

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Trezor

Trezor is a leading hardware wallet manufacturer. The Trezor website fell victim to a DNS poisoning or BGP hijacking attack, which caused vicitors to be redirected to an attacker website, which prompted them to enter their recovery seed phrase. Entering the phrase allowed the attacker to steal their funds. It's unclear how much was lost. The malicious site was eventually taken down and the original site restored.

This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.

About Trezor

"The safe place for your coins." "Store your coins with Trezor." "Hardware wallet is the safest way to manage & trade your cryptocurrencies."

"In [BGP hijacking or DNS Poisoning] scams, hackers are able to redirect users away from the website even if the correct website was entered into the web browser. Trezor users had fallen prey to this scam."

"PSA: Phishing. We have encountered a clone of Trezor Wallet, tricking users to divulge their recovery seed. Always check for a valid https connection while using http://wallet.trezor.io." "The device itself can be trusted; make sure to verify all actions on the Trezor screen."

"Between June 30 and July 1, 2018, Trezor’s support team began to investigate the cause of alerts it had received regarding an invalid SSL certificate for the company’s website. Further investigation revealed a phishing campaign being perpetrated against the Trezor customer base."

"Late night yesterday, our Support Team started receiving inquiries about an invalid SSL certificate, which serves as a stamp of authenticity of our web services. This can happen for a few reasons, some of which are less serious. Unfortunately, after investigating these reports closer, we found out that the invalid certificate warning appeared because of phishing attempts against Trezor users."

"The Trezor team says "signs point toward DNS poisoning or BGP hijacking" as the means attackers hijacked legitimate traffic meant for the official wallet.trezor.io domain but redirected these users to a malicious server hosting a fake website. An investigation is still underway to determine the exact cause." "Bookmark in this case isn't enough. Seems like DNS poisoning attack. Checking for valid cert helps though." "The fake Trezor Wallet website was served to some users who attempted to access wallet.trezor.io — the legitimate address. We do not yet know which attack vector was used, but the signs point toward DNS poisoning or BGP hijacking."

"In the image above, the address bar shows the correct address ie. wallet.trezor.io. But, an inspection of the site revealed several critical errors." "One, the website’s certificate was not trusted as shown by the “Not secure” words in the address bar." "They exploited the expiry: That's what I looked at and thought 'ok the certificate is just expired and that happens'. I was fully conned and I know a lot about this stuff." "First of all, look for the “Secure” sign in your browser’s address bar. If the certificate is invalid, your browser will warn you, and you should heed the warning. (Make sure you are accessing the correct URL: wallet.trezor.io)"

"Hijacked Trezor website requesting for seed." "[T]he fake website was asking users to enter a copy of their "recovery seed," something the Trezor team said would never do." "Upon accessing the web, the fake Wallet displayed an alert about device memory damage, asking users to restore their recovery seed. This was the second red flag, as the sentence contained errors."

"The third red flag was the method of recovery (seed check) — the fake site forced users to enter both the order number as well as the seed word into the computer."

"Trezor says the manuals of its two types of Trezor wallets —One and Model T— clearly state that users should never enter the recovery seed anywhere but the Trezor device, and never on a computer (app or website regardless)." "Trezor One: You should never enter your recovery seed on a computer, along with the order number. The order is always given to you by your Trezor device. Never by the computer." "Trezor Model T: You should never enter your recovery seed anywhere but on your Trezor device. Under no circumstances should you enter your seed on a computer."

"[A]lways verify all operations on your Trezor device. You should only trust the device display and what is written on it. For other sources of information, always maintain a healthy amount of skepticism."

"[N]ever divulge sensitive or private data to anyone. This includes us at SatoshiLabs. We will never ask you for your recovery seed. Trezor Wallet will never ask you for your recovery seed. Only your Trezor device may, but it will do so securely."

"We would like to thank everyone for their cooperation while we investigate this issue further. Special thanks go to our users, who reported this immediately. We will continue to do our best to figure out the cause and make sure to minimize the impact on you."

"Some users found themselves unsure if emails from Trezor warning of the scam were legitimate, and not just another phishing attempt following the attack."

"The Trezor team said it was able to take down the malicious site after contacting its hosting provider and having it taken down." "At this moment, the fake Wallet has been taken down by the hosting provider. However, you should remain vigilant and report all suspicious sites. It is possible that this attack method will be used repeatedly in the future."

This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.

The background of the exchange platform, service, or individuals involved, as it would have been seen or understood at the time of the events.

Include:

• Known history of when and how the service was started.
• What problems does the company or service claim to solve?
• What marketing materials were used by the firm or business?
• Audits performed, and excerpts that may have been included.
• Business registration documents shown (fake or legitimate).
• How were people recruited to participate?
• Public warnings and announcements prior to the event.

Don't Include:

• Any wording which directly states or implies that the business is/was illegitimate, or that a vulnerability existed.
• Anything that wasn't reasonably knowable at the time of the event.

There could be more than one section here. If the same platform is involved with multiple incidents, then it can be linked to a main article page.

The Reality

This sections is included if a case involved deception or information that was unknown at the time. Examples include:

• When the service was actually started (if different than the "official story").
• Who actually ran a service and their own personal history.
• How the service was structured behind the scenes. (For example, there was no "trading bot".)
• Details of what audits reported and how vulnerabilities were missed during auditing.

What Happened

The specific events of the loss and how it came about. What actually happened to cause the loss and some of the events leading up to it.

Key Event Timeline - Trezor BGP Highjacking/DNS Poisoning

Date	Event	Description
July 1st, 2018 3:49:00 AM MDT	Main Event	Expand this into a brief description of what happened and the impact. If multiple lines are necessary, add them here.

Technical Details

This section includes specific detailed technical analysis of any security breaches which happened. What specific software vulnerabilities contributed to the problem and how were they exploited?

Total Amount Lost

The total amount lost is unknown.

How much was lost and how was it calculated? If there are conflicting reports, which are accurate and where does the discrepancy lie?

Immediate Reactions

How did the various parties involved (firm, platform, management, and/or affected individual(s)) deal with the events? Were services shut down? Were announcements made? Were groups formed?

Ultimate Outcome

What was the end result? Was any investigation done? Were any individuals prosecuted? Was there a lawsuit? Was any tracing done?

Total Amount Recovered

There do not appear to have been any funds recovered in this case.

What funds were recovered? What funds were reimbursed for those affected users?

Ongoing Developments

What parts of this case are still remaining to be concluded?

General Prevention Policies

In general, all hardware wallets are designed so that the seed phrase is only ever entered onto the device itself, and never into any computer interface. You should never be asked to enter the device on your computer anywhere.

Individual Prevention Policies

No specific policies for individual prevention have yet been identified in this case.

For the full list of how to protect your funds as an individual, check our Prevention Policies for Individuals guide.

Platform Prevention Policies

Policies for platforms to take to prevent this situation have not yet been selected in this case.

For the full list of how to protect your funds as a financial service, check our Prevention Policies for Platforms guide.

Regulatory Prevention Policies

No specific regulatory policies have yet been identified in this case.

For the full list of regulatory policies that can prevent loss, check our Prevention Policies for Regulators guide.