Critical Ledger Nano S Update Fixes Security Gap, Adds More Concurrent Currency Support!

A mandatory (by 3/20) update is available for the Ledger Nano S hardware wallet. However, if some of the buzz on Twitter is to be believed, you should not wait to get it.

According to Saleem Rashied on Twitter, who claims to be (though I have not verified) a security researched involved in testing the wallet, this is a much more serious update than is being implied by the official documentations. Given the strenuous nature of the language, and the lack of any real reason to delay the update, I'm inclined to err on the side of caution and simply update immediately.

Now, onto the less critical but more exciting!

One of the main drawbacks of the Ledger Nano S was the extremely limited memory. This prevented loading the applications for more than about 4-5 coins at once, and created problems with memory fragmentation wherein if you repeatedly installed and uninstalled coin storage applications, you would need to factory reset eventually to reclaim fragmented memory storage or face ever dwindling capacity.

This design is actually an additional layer of security and not necessarily a design flaw. By limiting the memory on the Nano S, Ledger also substantially limited the capacity available for any attacker to use to attempt to load or inject any malicious code or applications.

However, thanks to this update the coin applications have been optimized to make better use of the minimal storage, and coins with similar structures (such as forks) have been streamlined to reduce capacity usage. The end result is an upgrade to an expected capacity of approximately 12 coins (or 11 coins + Ethereum and all ERC20s in one slot with MyEtherWallet.)

As usual, I recommend the Ledger Nano S as the best hardware wallet security option (that I have used personally.) If you properly employ it, your cryptocurrency is almost completely protected short of you being physically taken hostage / your physical wallet stolen and pin compromised.

Sources: Google, Steemit, Twitter (Saleem Rashid), TheMarkyMark
Copyright: Ledger, LedgerWallet.com