No one breaks the encryption to get their private keys out of a working hardware wallet. That is what the hardware wallet is designed to prevent. A recovery lab actually provides assistance with all things surrounding the device.
Hardware wallets were created to stop people from extracting your private keys; they accomplish this goal. The recoverable materials most often include a seed phrase backup, a wallet.dat file, or a keystore which was saved to a hard disk that has now failed.
Overwhelmingly most cryptocurrency loss is due to storage failure. The wallet.dat or keystore files were stored in a laptop hard disk which has since failed. The user had saved their seed phrase as a photograph and/or as notes and either the phone or card used to store them failed. An encrypted wallet export (which was backed up) would no longer mount from a backup drive. None of these scenarios represent a cryptographic problem; all are simply storage issues that happen to be associated with currency.
A really tough one to recover would be if you forgot your password and have no way of decrypting an encrypted wallet file (this is a very different type of work with low odds rather than a “recovery”).
If a hard disk fails we will image the disk read only and rebuild the file system from this copy in exactly the same way as any other recovery. Wallets have identifiable structures so even when a file system is completely destroyed it is still possible to carve out a wallet.dat or keystore using a signature from unallocated space, including ones that were deleted years ago which you had completely forgotten creating.
The deleted seed-phrase notes, the screenshots of the recovery sheet and the old backups (exports) are generally recovered in the same way. Practically speaking, the recoverable information is usually something that the owner had no idea was even there.
As Ledger, Trezor, etc. use a secure element to keep your private key safe from being physically extracted (including decap and side channel attacks), if the device is lost or dead and you don’t know the seed phrase, the funds will never be reachable; this is simply your security model doing what it’s supposed to do, not some hole that a specialist can fill.
Similarly, an encrypted wallet file which is locked because the user forgot the passphrase cannot be opened by us. There are brute force services available for that purpose and they represent a completely separate market and with completely separate risk/odds, dependent solely upon how much of the passphrase you remember.
The prices of our services are standard, since this is a storage service (as opposed to a “recover the money” type), so the cost of recovering a single drive will be from £300 +VAT, as well as from £250 +VAT for a USB stick/card, which includes a free 48-hour diagnostic and a written quote prior to taking your job on. Also, we don’t take a cut of any recoverable monies, and we would advise against using a company that does!
Please send us just the data storage device/media (not the seed phrase). Upon successful recovery you will have access to your data/files, but nothing else will leave with them.
No. Anyone suggesting they can help you recover your cryptocurrency without having the seed phrase should be viewed very suspiciously. The reason for this is that Ledger/Trezor/and similar products store your private key securely within a hardware module specifically designed to prevent theft/damage of the key itself. Without the seed phrase, the funds are completely unavailable; that’s how it was intended to operate.
Normally, yes. This is typical data retrieval: the drive is copied (read-only) and then the file system is rebuilt using this copy. The structure of wallet files makes them identifiable enough that they can typically be “carved” from the image of a drive whose file system is gone, using the signature alone (including any deleted copies the user may have forgotten creating).
Occasionally, as long as it was ever digital. Images of the recovery sheet, typed notes, and the older export of backups are all recoverable from the dead media via standard methods. It will not be possible technically if it only ever existed in print form.
Never. Data recovery occurs with your hardware storage media, not your seed. Anybody who requests that you enter or send the actual seed phrase is stealing from you. The same applies to any service requesting you provide your seed “for verification purposes”.
We charge standard rates for our services. This is because we are doing storage work. Our costs will depend upon the device(s). As examples, for a single drive, this would be from £300 + VAT. For a USB stick or memory card, this would be from £250 + VAT per item. These charges apply once your free 48-hour diagnostic is complete. We do not take a portion of your recovered funds. Be very cautious of companies that do.