news.bitcoin.com • 2h
Critical Entropy Degradation in Coldcard Firmware Facilitates $38M BTC Theft
A critical firmware vulnerability in specific Coldcard Mk3 hardware wallet models has resulted in a catastrophic reduction of entropy during the seed generation process. The flaw, identified as a weak Pseudo-Random Number Generator (PRNG), degraded the cryptographic search space from a standard 128 bits to a highly vulnerable 40 bits. An attacker utilized AI-driven vulnerability discovery to identify the flaw and subsequently performed a rapid brute-force derivation of private keys. This coordinated attack resulted in the theft of approximately 594 BTC ($38 million) from up to 1,196 addresses within a 25-minute window, highlighting critical failures in automated security auditing and hardware-based entropy implementations.