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SecuX STONE V20

🔍 Last analysed 3rd December 2021 . No source for current release found

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Try out searching for "lost bitcoins", "stole my money" or "scammers" together with the wallet's name, even if you think the wallet is generally trustworthy. For all the bigger wallets you will find accusations. Make sure you understand why they were made and if you are comfortable with the provider's reaction.

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The Analysis 

Private keys can be created offline and are not sharedser

The product page states that SecuX can generate recovery words from 12 to 24 word sets:

SecuX wallets generate your unique 24 recovery words and support BIP-32, -39, and -44 standard 12, 18 and 24 recovery word sets. It also provides a 25-word passphrase for additional security.

It also claims to keep the key offline.

SecuX wallets keep your data offline and keep you off the radar. Your private key remains within the Secure Element chip and never leaves the device.

From the FAQ:

SecuX wallets are hardware wallets equipped with an Infineon SLE solid Flash CC EAL5+ Secure Element chip, which is used to securely store your unique PIN and Private Key. It enables zero transaction leakage and your transactions are verified without the private key ever leaving the device.

Device displays receive address for confirmation

On transactions:

It is completely safe to make transactions via Bluetooth connection due to the security chip that we have in all of our hardware wallets. During connection, your private key for transaction signatures remains protected inside the security chip which is never accessed during this process and will not be susceptible to any attacks from outside the wallet. All SecuX wallets will also require a One Time Password (OTP) when connecting via Bluetooth to ensure security. Bluetooth 5 also has AES encryption that further encrypts sensitive data while transmitting.

The large display that SecuX wallet offers also comes into play where you are able to verify all the details easily during a transaction.

Source Code and Reproducibility

The Quick Start Guide links to a GitHub account “secuxtech.” and there is a repository labeled “SecuX device firmware.” so there is some public source code but …

This device features a “secure element” which runs its own, proprietary firmware that we could not find the source code for. In the Device Functions - About we can read:

Firmware Version – current firmware versions of the Secure Element (SE) and the device MCU (micro controller unit) information which you may need for firmware upgrades and technical support.

Their GitHub only features a repository for the MCU part. If the SE firmware can put the stored funds at risk, we would have to consider the device as a whole as “closed source” but what is it that the SE is used for? Unfortunately we could not find any information on this aspect anywhere on their website and have to assume that by delegating the private key generation to the SE running compromised firmware, the product could generate backups/keys known to the provider.

Without further information this product is not verifiable.

(ml, dg, lw)

Verdict Explained

Without public source of the reviewed release available, this product cannot be verified!

As part of our Methodology, we ask:

No Source!

Is the source code publicly available?

If the answer is "no", we mark it as "No source for current release found".

A wallet that claims to not give the provider the means to steal the users’ funds might actually be lying. In the spirit of “Don’t trust - verify!” you don’t want to take the provider at his word, but trust that people hunting for fame and bug bounties could actually find flaws and back-doors in the wallet so the provider doesn’t dare to put these in.

Back-doors and flaws are frequently found in closed source products but some remain hidden for years. And even in open source security software there might be catastrophic flaws undiscovered for years.

An evil wallet provider would certainly prefer not to publish the code, as hiding it makes audits orders of magnitude harder.

For your security, you thus want the code to be available for review.

If the wallet provider doesn’t share up to date code, our analysis stops there as the wallet could steal your funds at any time, and there is no protection except the provider’s word.

“Up to date” strictly means that any instance of the product being updated without the source code being updated counts as closed source. This puts the burden on the provider to always first release the source code before releasing the product’s update. This paragraph is a clarification to our rules following a little poll.

We are not concerned about the license as long as it allows us to perform our analysis. For a security audit, it is not necessary that the provider allows others to use their code for a competing wallet. You should still prefer actual open source licenses as a competing wallet won’t use the code without giving it careful scrutiny.

The product cannot be independently verified. If the provider puts your funds at risk on purpose or by accident, you will probably not know about the issue before people start losing money. If the provider is more criminally inclined he might have collected all the backups of all the wallets, ready to be emptied at the press of a button. The product might have a formidable track record but out of distress or change in management turns out to be evil from some point on, with nobody outside ever knowing before it is too late.