Ledger’s security team disclosed a hardware-level attack on MediaTek’s Dimensity 7300 system-on-chip, used in Solana Mobile’s Seeker phone, that let researchers gain “full and absolute control” of a test handset during its earliest boot phase. The company detailed the work in a Donjon research blog titled “Is Your Smartphone’s Hardware Safe?” and confirmed the target SoC as the Dimensity 7300 (MT6878).
Ledger engineers Charles Christen and Léo Benito wrote that they used electromagnetic fault injection during the first-stage bootloader to bypass security checks on the Dimensity 7300, overwrite memory protections and drop their own code, reaching a state where “no security barrier [was] left standing” on the device. Public summaries of the research state they achieved “full and absolute control” of a handset built on the chip.
The attack requires physical access but runs fast. Ledger puts the single-shot success rate between 0.1% and 1% per boot attempt and notes that an attacker can re-run the glitch once per second, turning what looks like a lab demo into a practical extraction path that works in “only a matter of a few minutes” for a determined operator.
Crucially for Solana Seeker owners, multiple spec sheets and rollout documents from Solana-facing outlets list the phone’s processor as the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 octa-core SoC, pairing 8 GB of RAM with 128 GB of storage and a 4,500 mAh battery.
A separate logistics update shows Solana Mobile has already shipped an initial batch of roughly 150,000 Seeker units to buyers in more than 50 countries at a retail price around $450 to $500.
Ledger states that once the electromagnetic glitch lands, the result is “total compromise.” Researchers say an attacker can then read or modify any data on the device, including cryptographic material and application secrets. The report stresses that “there is simply no way to safely store and use one’s private keys on those devices” for users who rely on the compromised SoC without an external hardware security module.
The flaw sits in the silicon. Ledger notes that “the fault injection vulnerability can’t be fixed through a software update or patch” because the issue lives inside the SoC’s hardware state machine and boot ROM, which never changes after fabrication. Users “stay vulnerable even if the vulnerability is disclosed,” and any smartphone built on the Dimensity 7300 inherits the same exposure profile for as long as attackers can get hands-on access.
MediaTek acknowledged the finding to Ledger and responded that the Dimensity 7300 family targets mainstream consumer smartphones rather than hardened cryptographic appliances, pointing to a design scope that did not include resistance to lab-grade physical fault injection. In its comments, MediaTek argued that vendors building products for secure key custody must stack additional defenses around the SoC if they expect to withstand invasive attacks.
The timing hits Solana Mobile at a sensitive moment. On December 3, Solana Mobile announced that SKR, the native token of its mobile ecosystem, will launch in January 2026 with a fixed 10 billion supply and a distribution skewed toward airdrops and growth. The official Solana Mobile blog outlines allocations of 30% (3 billion SKR) to airdrops, 25% to growth and partnerships, 10% to liquidity and launch, 10% to a community treasury, 15% to Solana Mobile, and 10% to Solana Labs.
A parallel SKR explainer on Solana Mobile’s tokenomics site repeats the 10 billion total supply and confirms that 30% unlocks at token generation for airdrops, with growth allocations vesting over 18 months and team and Solana Labs tranches subject to a 12‑month cliff followed by 36‑month linear vesting. Public coverage notes that early airdrops will lean on Seeker ownership and on-chain activity, effectively tying SKR distribution to hardware that now carries a known key-extraction path for motivated attackers.
SOL traded around $144 today, up roughly 2% over the past 24 hours and about 13% over the past month, according to major aggregators.
Prices showed no immediate large deviation relative to broader market beta after the Ledger disclosure, but Seeker-specific user channels already contained weeks of complaints about hardware quality, missing security updates and weak support before today’s hardware note landed.
“Few days ago I decided to setup and use my Seeker phone I bought during pre-order as my daily.
I bought it a screen protector, and transferred all my apps, moved my SIM card, and everything.
Started using it, and I did feel that power button is a bit wobbly, and on second day it started falling out.” – reddit
For institutional desks, this aligns Solana Mobile’s flagship handset with a class of devices that hardware wallet vendors now treat as inherently unsafe for private key storage when left unpaired with dedicated secure elements. That puts a question mark over the Seeker’s role as a trusted self-custody endpoint right before SKR turns the mobile stack into a yield-bearing, governance-linked asset surface for Solana’s on-chain economy.
