The Czech company Trezor, developer of the cryptocurrency industry’s first hardware wallet, has also just become the first company to integrate an open source secure element chipwhich means that all device information that secures your assets can be audited. This was revealed by its CEO, Matej Zak, during the Trustless By Design conference.
Until this point, the auditability of secure element chips had been a flashpoint in the cryptocurrency industry. Trezor was long criticized for not integrating this security measure into its devices, but the company replied that these chips, being protected by confidentiality agreements, represented a black box in the auditability of hardware wallets for users.
However, they gave in to pressure and in October 2023 they decided to integrate a safe element into their Safe 3. But, in parallel, they had been working on a secret weapon. Through their sister company Tropic Square, part of the conglomerate of companies under Satoshi Labs, they developed the first open source secure element chip, the TROPIC01. Now, They make history by integrating this chip into their new transaction signing device.
According to the Kaspersky encyclopedia“a Secure Element is a chip protected by design from unauthorized access, used to run a limited set of applications, as well as to store cryptographic and confidential data.”
It is in this chip where the private keys that allow wallet transactions to be signed are stored. By having the private keys isolated on this chip, the device is more resistant against brute force attacks, Although these types of attacks require advanced techniques and tools (high-precision lasers, electromagnetic injection, among others) and, therefore, the physical presence of the attacker. Now, being open source, it gives full auditability to users, who can know all the information on the device where they store their private keys.
Aside from the TROPIC01, the Trezor Safe 7 maintains a traditional secondary chip, the EAL6+, providing a dual architecture for its safe elements. Besides, supports Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), Magnetic Qi2 compatible wireless charging and features a high-resolution color touch screen. Bluetooth communication is secured using Trezor Host Protocol (THP), an open source layer that ensures encrypted, authenticated and private connections across mobile, desktop and tablet devices.
Prepared for a quantum future
Although the development of quantum computing represents a challenge for Bitcoin, it is not yet certain how this problem will be addressed in the future. However, the Trezor Safe 7 takes this issue into consideration by support updates against quantum attacks. This could mean that, in the future, the Trezor Safe 7 can remain valid against potential attacks.