Honestly, this is super crazy. The level of sophistication reminds me of the "2024 Lebanon pager attacks", where devices were compromised before reaching their targets.

And it makes me quite concerned. For years, cold storage has been considered one of the safest ways to protect your crypto from online attacks. But now, even the device you trust to keep your crypto safe could be compromised before you even use it.

Who knows? I have always wondered how criminals know which people hold large amounts of crypto in some of these wrench attacks, which I covered them earlier. Could there be other ways to track or identify crypto investors? For example, a GPS module hidden inside a device? I have no evidence that this is happening, but it makes you think.

I guess the lesson here is to never buy a hardware wallet from random sellers on Amazon or eBay just because it is cheaper. Buy directly from the manufacturer or an authorized seller. And even then, don't blindly trust the device. Follow the manufacturer's security checks, although this incident shows that some checks might not detect every physical modification.

Another idea is to spread your crypto across multiple wallets and, for larger amounts, potentially use devices from different manufacturers. That way, a single compromised device is less likely to put everything at risk.

Honestly, cold storage is still useful, but it seems that we need to think much more carefully about who and what we trust.