How The Implant Worked — And Why It Bypassed The Secure Element
Ledger's Donjon security team later explained the mechanism in plain terms: the implant did not break Ledger's Secure Element, operating system, or transaction signatures. Instead, it went around them.
The added circuitry sat inside the enclosure and monitored the screen. When a user set up the device and the 24-word recovery phrase was displayed, the implant decoded the words from the screen data and transmitted them over LTE using a provisioned eSIM.
Anyone holding that phrase could rebuild the wallet elsewhere and move the funds.
That is why this attack was so unsettling. Standard genuineness checks could still pass, because the Secure Element itself was untouched.
The secret leaked on its way to the screen, not out of the chip.
It is a reminder that a hardware wallet's cryptography is only one part of its security — the physical device, its display path, and its journey to the buyer matter just as much.
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