Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier: Perfect security does not exist, and dedicated hardware is needed to counter AI attacks
Ledger Chairman and CEO Pascal Gauthier said in a Bloomberg Crypto interview on November 10, 2026, that everybody will be hacked at some point, perfect security does not exist, and that rule applies to Ledger as well as others. He placed this in the context of threats facing the entire crypto industry, mentioning the recent roughly $6.3 billion theft from Binance, and noted that AI is accelerating the speed and complexity of attacks, while quantum computing could further strengthen some threats. The interview also touched on the risk of device tampering in supply-chain links, with losses on the order of about $90 million mentioned.
Gauthier later posted on X to clarify that the circulating short clip came from part of a longer interview, and that he was discussing the security challenges facing the industry as a whole, including Ledger, and the need to continuously improve defenses. He said AI-generated phishing, deepfakes and autonomous agents without verification are acting at machine speed, and ordinary devices were not designed for this. He called on the industry to establish shared standards for device manufacturing, shipping and verification to address device tampering, a persistent cross-company threat, and mentioned that Ledger Donjon team’s Cerberus system continuously scans and patches vulnerabilities in an AI-driven way. He stressed hardware as a verifiable root of trust, and that security must extend to the screen, because what you see must be what is actually happening.
On October 15, 2026, Ledger launched Ledger Atom at the Ledger Op3n event in Paris. The official introduction said the device uses a dual-environment architecture: a standard OS runs everyday apps, while Ledger OS runs on a separate Secure Element; when approval is needed, it switches to Secure Mode through an FPGA hardware switch, with Ledger OS exclusively controlling the screen to ensure what you see is what you approve. Gauthier said in the interview that the product is expected to ship next July, and called it a communication device with a secure screen. The company also stressed that it will communicate verifiable facts only through authorized channels.
Original source:
Title: Everybody Will Be Hacked At Some Point: Ledger CEO Publisher: Bloomberg / Yahoo Finance Publication date: 2026-11-10 URL: https://finance.yahoo.com/video/everybody-hacked-point-ledger-ceo-195145508.html Source type: original interview transcript Verification status: key passages from the interview transcript were actually read for this report (as of 2026-11-11) Supporting content: supports Gauthier’s statements in the Bloomberg Crypto interview that everybody will eventually be hacked, perfect security does not exist, and that the same rule applies to Ledger, as well as the discussion of AI-accelerated attacks, quantum threats, the Binance incident and supply-chain risk. It does not prove that device tampering has been fully solved, nor does it prove that Ledger Atom has shipped.
ABAB AI Insight
Pascal Gauthier has long positioned hardware security as the core of Ledger’s identity. Since around 2014, the company has launched hardware signers and has cumulatively sold more than 8 million devices, covering 165 countries, and claims to protect about 20% of global crypto assets. In 2020, its e-commerce database was breached, exposing the personal information of about 272,000 customers and triggering targeted phishing; the company then stressed that private keys and recovery phrases were not affected. In October 2026, Ledger confirmed that some devices were fitted with hardware modules in the distribution process after leaving its control, which could read the 24-word recovery phrase on the screen during setup and exfiltrate it via LTE. The investigation involved distributors in Southeast Asia, and the scale and responsible parties are still being verified.
On the business path, Ledger is extending its existing signer model into a broader digital life. In March 2026, Gauthier published an article titled Revenge of the Atoms, using tokenization, AI and quantum collision as the backdrop; in October, it launched Ledger Atom, which uses a parallel architecture of a standard OS and Ledger OS running on an EAL6+ Secure Element, with an FPGA physically cutting off non-secure mode access to the screen and touch input to ensure that what you see is what you approve. In the interview, he explicitly positioned Atom as a product response to current attacks, including tampering in the distribution chain, and planned to ship it in 2027. At the same time, the company has deployed the Cerberus system in its Donjon lab for continuous vulnerability scanning.
Compared with centralized exchange custody, Gauthier reiterated in the interview that decentralized self-custody has lower losses proportionally, saying the overall hardware wallet industry has suffered far less loss than centralized institutions, but he acknowledged that self-custody is not absolutely safe either, especially in the face of physical supply-chain attacks. The key similarity is that attackers always target high-value assets; the key difference is that AI acceleration at the software layer, including phishing and fake interfaces, makes screen trustworthiness a new bottleneck, while Atom addresses the problem of what you see is not what you sign through hardware-enforced switching — which is also the core mechanism of interface deception in Bybit’s roughly $1.5 billion incident last year.
Therefore, what Gauthier’s remarks change is the boundary of Ledger’s security promise: from emphasizing that the device itself is difficult to compromise remotely, to openly acknowledging that the industry, including Ledger itself, faces ongoing physical and AI threats, and using Atom’s secure screen and the call for industry standards as a concrete response. Observable indicators include whether Atom ships as planned in 2027, whether its Secure Mode is adopted and intercepts approvals in actual user flows, and whether the industry develops shared standards for device manufacturing and verification. Before the conclusions of the supply-chain tampering investigation are fully released, its trust chain from factory to hand still depends on actual control in the distribution chain.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
Perfect security does not exist; the key is the ongoing comparison between attack cost and the speed of defensive upgrades.
What appears on the screen must match what is actually signed, or else the approval itself loses its meaning.
Supply-chain attacks can bypass chip security, requiring standards across the entire chain from manufacturing to verification.