Hardware espionage is widely discussed as a theoretical supply chain risk - but documented real-world examples are rare. That changed when a user in Thailand bought a secondhand Ledger Nano X cryptocurrency wallet online, noticed the battery was smaller than expected and found a small green circuit board with wires and an antenna connected to the legitimate device inside. The implant had been designed to fit within the original casing, transmit data wirelessly and steal recovery seeds without the owner ever knowing.

This session, led by Joe Grand of Grand Idea Studio, will cover:

• How the hardware implant was physically constructed;
• How reverse engineering methods including decapsulation, firmware extraction and RF analysis revealed the implant's full capability and transmission behavior;
• What this real-world case reveals about supply chain trust, resale market risk, and the gap between theoretical hardware espionage and documented attacks.