Is my seed compromised?

Security About seeds and wallet
1

Hello everyone!
Im not a native english speaker so my apologies for any mistake.

My corcerns are about my recovery seed safety. I started my trezor model T and everything was in order. When the time came to write down the recovery seed i was alone with my partner and we both write down the 12 words with pen and paper.
I cover every camera next to me and my laptop webcam, i never took a photo of the seed and there was no one around, because i know its the most important part of security.

The issue is that a few days ago i was listening to a podcast about security breachs and i just remember that me and my partner when we were writing down the 12 words, we said it out loud, not screaming of course but we were both saying it while we were writing down the words and next to us we had our personal cellphones and also the laptop, all of them with the cameras cover but i complety forgot about the microphones.

I have my funds in my trezor but i have to be honest that im a little bit worried if maybe one of the cellphones or laptop was infected and someone could have listened to us through the microphones saying the words. Should i start my trezor again and create a new recovery seed? Or im being too paranoic?

Thanks to anyone who can give and advice to this. It was a human mistake, nothing to do with trezor that i love the device.

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Hi @Trazavilo,

Your english is perfectly understandable and good, so now worries about that. If you want, you can also use the “Other languages” category later.

I understand your concern and you can’t be too careful about protecting your Recovery seed, so I don’t think you’re being paranoid.

On the other hand, if anyone was listening through the microphone(s) they’d have to be ready and either write every word down in the right sequence or record it and write all of it down later. Plus, they’d have to know what it was about. For a non-crypto savvy listener, the stream of words would not make any sense.

So, anyone listening, would have to a) have infected your PC with a virus to make it possible to listen through your microphones, b) listening at the right time, when you said the seed words, c) know what the words were about, and d) write everything down in the right sequence.That’s several things that must happen at the same time, so the chance it’d happened is low.

But it may have happened. You should make up your own opinion of how probable it was that it happened, but if you want peace of mind and not go worrying about this issue, I’d advise you to:

  1. Start planning to make a new Recovery seed. That involves moving your funds out of Trezor temporarily to another Trezor, software wallet or online exchange, and then back again when you’ve finished setting up your Trezor with a new Recovery seed. This’ll mean that fees will be drawn for every send transaction both to the temporary wallet and back, and you’ll need funds for the fees in your Trezor wallet. For instance, Ethereum (ETH) will need fees present in your wallet so you can’t transfer all ETH out of your Trezor. The same goes for most other coins and tokens too. The fees are usually low though.

  2. It’s a good idea to invest in an Anti-virus program that you can install on more than one machine, for instance your PC, mobile phone and tablet (if you have that). I use Bitdefender total Security, which can also monitor your machine’s microphone and tell you if/when it’s accessed, but many Anti-Virus packages have the possibility to be installed on at least three machines, without costing a fortune.

Good luck! :slight_smile:

Edit: On second thought, I’m not sure if Trezor has inbuilt fee handling in case you move all your funds in an account to another Trezor account, and maybe in other circumstances too, so I’ve stricken that statement above.

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Thank you very much my friend!
I dont mind about some fees so i can go to sleep in peace hahaha.
I know the chances are really really low but as life has teach me as a south american i will make a new recovery seed (im learning about the Shamir recovery before i do it, maybe its time to do one step more on secutiry). Thanks for the fast reply, you are awesome!

Ps: any advice if you have done shamir its complety welcome, but dont mind if not. You helped me a lot already :slight_smile:

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You’re welcome. :slight_smile:

I’ve not used Shamir backup myself, so I have no personal experience with it, but I read about it before deciding what type of Recovery seed I’d use. It’s correct that it’s more secure but also more complex and the risk of losing one or more pieces of the seed is greater (depending on how they’re safe guarded), so I chose to not use it on my Trezor.

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