Coldcard firmware update requires at least 50 dice rolls after RNG defect exposed customer funds

Coinkite, the company behind Coldcard, released firmware updates that require owners to provide manual randomness before generating a new wallet seed: at least 50 dice rolls, 128 coin flips or 65 timed key presses. The updates came three weeks after a random-number-generator defect exposed customer funds to attackers. Firmware 5.6.1 applies to the Mk4 and Mk5, while 1.5.1Q applies to the Q, the larger Coldcard model with a keyboard and QR scanning. Coinkite said the manual input supplements randomness from the STM32 TRNG (hardware random-number generator) and both secure elements. The company traced the vulnerability to a build and link error that left a setting intended to disable a software random-number path ineffective, allowing MicroPython’s Yasmarang PRNG (pseudorandom number generator) to enter the seed-generation process in March 2021. Affected seeds had about 72 bits of entropy rather than the expected 128 bits. On July 30, attackers swept 594.5 BTC from 500 addresses, while confirmed losses later exceeded $100 million. Firmware 5.6.1 now checks at boot that random-number requests reach the intended hardware path and halts if they do not. Coinkite also replaced Yasmarang with a SHA-256 Hash_DRBG (standardized deterministic random generator), seeded at startup with a full 256-bit digest from both secure elements instead of the 32-bit value used by earlier firmware. The update adds manual entropy through dice, coin flips or key-press timing, and checks staged transactions again before signing. Coinkite warned that existing vulnerable seeds must be replaced and Bitcoin moved. Mk2 and Mk3 devices are outside the release and remain at minimum fixed version 4.2.0. CryptoPotato reported that Galaxy Research counted 1,596 BTC from roughly 7,300 addresses, while a suspected fourth wave swept nearly 449 BTC on August 3.

The information on this website is generated using AI and we cannot guarantee its accuracy. Please use it as reference information only.