The new Trezor 7 is making a bit of a splash with its announcement that the secure element Trezor is using is open source.
TROPIC01 Becomes the World’s First Transparent secure element to power a consumer device, establishing a new benchmark for open, auditable hardware security.
This kind of stuff quickly gets beyond my pay-grade, but in general, most of the chips that your devices use are not open source. This includes the secure elements (special temper-resistant chips designed to hold cryptographic keys and other sensitive information). Apparently there is now an open source option:
Fabless semiconductor company Tropic Square, today announced a major milestone with the integration of its open architecture secure element, TROPIC01, into the newly launched Trezor Safe 7 hardware wallet. This marks the first time an open and auditable security chip has been deployed in a mass-market consumer device, establishing a new benchmark for transparency as the foundation of trust in hardware security.Hardware wallet industry founder Trezor leaned on Tropic Square early in the concept phase of its new-generation device to find a chip that was truly open and would provide an unprecedented level of protection for users’ data and digital assets.
“With Trezor Safe 7, we wanted to set a new standard for hardware wallet security. And thanks to TROPIC01, the world’s first transparent and auditable secure element, our product delivers one of the most robust security architectures in the industry,” said Matěj Žák, CEO of Trezor. “For us it was an obvious approach, one that we envisioned many years ago and that Tropic Square was able to deliver,” he added.TROPIC01’s design for Trezor Safe 7 introduces the unique MAC&Destroy feature, a mechanism that prevents brute-force attacks by irreversibly limiting PIN attempts and destroying authentication tokens after repeated failures. Combined with TROPIC01’s built-in anti-tampering sensors and physical security defenses, this ensures that secrets remain secure even under physical assault, a critical safeguard for devices that protect digital assets.