Mobile Device Vulnerability Exposed: Why Your Smartphone's Security Chip Could Be a Weak Link for Crypto Assets

Security researchers at Ledger have uncovered a critical flaw in widely-used smartphone processors that poses a genuine threat to anyone storing cryptocurrencies on their mobile devices. The issue centers on MediaTek’s Dimensity 7300 system-on-chip (SoC), which contains a vulnerability that attackers could theoretically exploit to gain unauthorized access to devices and steal private keys.

How the Attack Works: The Electromagnetic Pulse Method

The vulnerability isn’t something that can be patched with a software update—it’s hardwired into the chip’s silicon itself. Ledger researchers Charles Christen and Léo Benito discovered that by firing electromagnetic pulses at a device during startup, they could bypass the security protections built into the processor. This technique, known as electromagnetic fault injection, essentially tricks the chip into misbehaving in predictable ways.

Once compromised, the attacker gains complete control over the affected device. For crypto users, this is catastrophic: it means private keys—the digital credentials needed to access and transfer funds—could be extracted and used by malicious actors to drain wallets.

The Real Risk: Success Through Repetition

While a single attempt at exploiting this mobile device vulnerability has only a 0.1% to 1% success rate, the practical threat is far more concerning. An attacker can repeat the attack roughly once per second without triggering alarms. This means persistent attackers could eventually succeed within minutes of sustained attempts. As Christen and Benito explained, the process becomes a numbers game: keep trying, and eventually the exploit will work.

“There is simply no way to safely store and use one’s private keys on these devices,” the researchers concluded, highlighting the severity of the discovery.

MediaTek’s Response: The Chip Wasn’t Designed for This

MediaTek responded by arguing that the Dimensity 7300 wasn’t engineered for high-security applications in the first place. The company stated the SoC is intended for standard consumer products, not for sensitive financial operations or hardware security modules (HSMs) that demand fortress-level protection.

However, this distinction matters little to ordinary users who are already using devices with this chip to manage their crypto holdings. The research was officially disclosed to MediaTek in May after being discovered in February, and vendors have since been notified.

What This Means for Crypto Holders

The fundamental takeaway is uncomfortable: modern smartphones—especially those using MediaTek’s Dimensity 7300 processor—may not be reliable vaults for private keys, regardless of which crypto wallet app you use. The vulnerability exists at the hardware level, beyond the reach of software security measures.

For anyone heavily invested in mobile-based crypto management, this discovery underscores why hardware wallets and offline storage remain the gold standard for asset protection. Until the industry develops chips with better inherent security design, the risks of storing significant cryptocurrency reserves on vulnerable mobile device hardware remain real.