Ledger Seed Store In Email Breach

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Ledger

A ledger hardware wallet user learned the hard way about never storing their seed phrase in a digital format. 3 years after setting up their wallet and storing a backup of the seed phrase in their email account, they found all wallets drained of $13k worth of cryptocurrency that they'd been saving up.

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

About Ledger

"Based in France, Ledger is the largest cryptocurrency hardware wallet company." "Ledger is a hardware cryptocurrency wallet that is used to store, manage, and sell cryptocurrency. The funds held in these wallets are secured using a 24-word recovery phrase and an optional secret passphrase that only the owner knows."

"Ledger offers two products, the Nano S and Nano X, that can store the digital keys used to secure crypto wallets. The devices can be used with a variety of cryptocurrencies, are compatible with numerous apps, and are supposed to offer a safe way to manage crypto without compromising too much on convenience. Ledger says on its website that it has sold 1.5 million products to customers in 165 countries to date."

"I purchased the Nano S over two years ago BECAUSE of security." "3 years ago, when I purchased the Ledger, I wrote down the recovery phrase, and it's been in the burn safe since. BUT, I also, can't believe I'm saying this, but I did enter it into my phone, and sent it to my own email address, where it has been ever since, I guess thinking if I ever lost the paper with the 24 word phrase, or it was stolen, I would have it there, so I could recover my assets."

"I mine Bitcoin as well, so I would be accessing through Ledger Live almost every week to sell and pay for electricity. Everything was normal for 3 years." "I've only had 2FA for maybe 1 year on email, and also weird thing is, looking through my security settings there, 2FA had been disabled, SOMEHOW. That must be how they hacked email." "I enabled 2FA a couple years ago, and have not checked it since."

"I recently logged into my account in Ledger Live expecting to see a great increase with the price of Bitcoin moving up. Instead of seeing what I expected to be about $13,000.00 worth of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Ethereum Classic, I see $0.00 balance on everything! I am absolutely blown away, saddened, and disappointed." "[O]ne day I opened it, 2 days ago, bam, every single bit was gone."

"[I]t seems I have lost literally everything, and there is no phone number to contact this company, only through emails, which they have not responded to. I can clearly see all of the funds from every crypto I was holding were sent out to different addresess which have now all been confirmed on the blockchain."

"[A]fter reading through all these comments, and everybody saying I must have entered my passphrase on my computer or phone at some point, you guys are right. I forgot, that Well, I guess that means somebody else can recover my assets too. :(" "Somebody hacked my email, got the 24 word recovery phrase, which I had stored there, my dumb fault, lesson learned, and recovered my ledger account on a different Ledger nano S, and at that point had access to move everything. :("

2FA on the email "is now enabled again, password changed too of course." I "will definitely be setting up my ledger with a new seed." "I got 2FA enabled on email now, and also NO sensitive info is stored in my email account. Passwords, and 2FA changed and reset on every account I have." "Next ledger I set up will have the phrase on paper, and NEVER see digital format."

"At least now I know, never, EVER to type the recovery seed in any digital format. Still cannot believe they managed to get it off my email, I have 2 factor authentication on my email account as well and they somehow got around that."

"This IS MY FAULT, and I take full blame for it. I guess I just never thought, without somebody having access to my e-mail that anyone would ever possibly be able to get access to it. It's just so weird, that it's been 3 years, and the assets were just now stolen. I've had close to that amount in there for a couple years now."

"I thank you for your help and research, i'm the idiot here. $13,000 lesson learned. NEVER INPUT YOUR RECOVERY PHRASE INTO DIGITAL FORMAT. Still wish there was something that could be done, but I know once it's gone, it's gone in crypto. Such a shame now that it looks like Bitcoin is beginning it's bull run."

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 - Ledger Seed Store In Email Breach
Date	Event	Description
August 1st, 2020 1:21:10 PM	First Event	This is an expanded description of what happened and the impact. If multiple lines are necessary, add them here.

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?