Trezor Safe 3/5/7 (hardware cold wallets)

[anon42475305]

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Compare Trezor Hardware Wallets | Advanced Crypto Security

Short description

Open-source hardware cold wallets for storing cryptocurrency securely.

Why I think this tool should be added

Privacy Guides recommends Monero, and so I believe a hardware cold-wallet recommendation makes sense to complement that recommendation. Modern Trezor wallets are, as far as I know, the best option in this category. They are open-source with EAL6+ certified secure elements to protect private key material. They can also be used with the official Monero GUI / CLI rather than Trezor’s own Trezor Suite.

Section on Privacy Guides

Hardware > Cold wallets

[KevPham (Kevin Pham)]

I’m interested in researching them further. We are long overdue for hardware-based recommendations.

Thanks for letting us know!

[anon48875053]

They’re also a good replacement for proprietary and disposable YubiKeys. So it’s pretty much a cryptowallet and a security key in one.

[anon63378630]

@anon48875053
Yubico at least has their app and tools on F-Droid and packaged in many distros.
And some of my Yubikeys are well over a decade old now and still work fine.

I’d definitely class them as apples and oranges.

[anon48875053]

@anon63378630

Yubico at least has their app and tools on F-Droid and packaged in many distros.

F-Droid Security Issues

After reading the new and updated article above, I would rather use other ways of installing and updating my apps, like Accrescent or Obtainium.

As for distribution packages, it’s very easy to spin up VMs using GNOME Boxes or, even better, just use distroboxes, so distro packages aren’t really a problem, imo.

@anon63378630

And some of my Yubikeys are well over a decade old now and still work fine.

Even if they work fine, they could be vulnerable to known exploits and are definitely missing new features on the latest firmware versions.

[jonah (Jonah Aragon)]

Do we have opinions on whether the TROPIC01 chip in the upcoming Trezor Safe 7 is enough of a security upgrade to no longer suggest using the Safe 3 and 5?

I think it is probably not, and we should recommend all 3, but I’m curious if anyone has an opposing viewpoint.

[anon42475305]

@jonah

is enough of a security upgrade to no longer suggest using the Safe 3 and 5?

I don’t think so. It’s very new and lacks any EAL certification, which is probably why they chose to go with a dual-SE architecture. Personally, I think the TROPIC01 is more exciting for how accessible it could make cutting-edge secure elements.

[anon42475305]

Security Key Comparison

TROPIC01, or Trezor? If the latter, could you elaborate at Trezor Safe 3/5/7 (hardware cold wallets)? My line of thinking is that TROPIC01 was included as some neat additional defense-in-depth, but its compromise doesn’t compromise the security of the product below what anything else provides.

Tropic01 really, in the Trezor Safe 7 it’s not a huge deal since there is still the OPTIGA secure element, but then your effective security is the same as the Trezor Safe 3/5 leaving no reason to spend almost 2× as much on the Safe 7.

Where it would be more impactful would be any product where you only have one secure element, like anywhere you need a hardware root of trust, such as for IoT devices. Unfortunately, but perhaps unsurprisingly, having only just released their first product, Tropic Square are in my opinion not yet established enough to prove they have what it takes to build robust secure elements that stand up to intrusion attempts over time (like the Titan M2 for instance).

Security Key Comparison

Because it wouldn’t really make much sense to stop selling the Trezor Safe 7. With this vulnerability, an attacker with physical access, an expert skill level, and more than €30,000 worth of specialized equipment could extract TROPIC01’s secret contribution. The attacker would still have to compromise the second secure element. They would also have to compromise the STM32U5 protection layer and somehow obtain or brute-force the user’s PIN, which can be up to 50 digits. So, I don’t see how sc…

Thus I never said they should stop selling the Safe 7, but all their marketing is based on the Tropic01 being necessary because closed-source secure elements can’t be trusted when in fact the opposite is true in this case. There is at this time no reason to spend nearly 2× as much for the Safe 7 over the Safe 5.

[jonah (Jonah Aragon)]

@anon42475305

no reason to spend almost 2× as much on the Safe 7

iOS compatibility.

[anon42475305]

One reason then. They haven’t even bothered to add FIDO2 support over Bluetooth despite the Safe 7 being the first Trezor devices with Bluetooth.

[jonah (Jonah Aragon)]

Honestly FIDO2 over Bluetooth seems kind of dead, but the Safe 7 also has unused NFC hardware they could’ve used for this purpose too. Missed opportunity, but I suppose they still could add it at any time.