The Secure Touchscreen: Secure Screens for Ledger’s Next-Generation Devices

To ensure a hardware device’s security, it must have three important elements: a secure enclave, encryption within that enclave, and a secure screen. The latter is an important—but often overlooked—part of hardware security. But not here at Ledger!

Secure screens have always been an integral part of Ledger’s security model, as the first hardware wallets to store private keys and drive their screens directly with the Secure Element.

But as transactions are becoming more complex, hardware must evolve along with it. To explain, smart contracts complicate transaction details, and hardware wallets with small screens make reading and verifying transactions more difficult. To ensure your security, you need a bigger better screen that offers an intuitive user experience—one that doesn’t compromise security.

And that’s exactly why Ledger has worked to build a secure touchscreen, the first of its kind.

What Is a Secure Touchscreen?

A secure touchscreen is much like the secure screen in all Ledger devices, an integral part of Ledger’s security model. It’s driven directly by the Secure Element chip, and as a result, the screen benefits from the chip’s resistance to remote and physical hacking, allowing you to trust the details it shows.

Ledger Stax and Ledger Flex are the first-ever devices with truly secure touchscreens. To explain, USB-sized devices pose some practical challenges when it comes to verifying and approving transaction details. A small display can make it tricky to see and verify your transaction details, and the small buttons may not suit all hands.

To mitigate the risks of making mistakes, or even worse, signing malicious transactions, it’s important to have a large secure screen with an intuitive user experience and interface. And that’s exactly why we developed the secure touchscreen category at Ledger: to make signing transactions more intuitive and easy to verify.

Why Is a Secure Touchscreen Important?

Behind every screen is a chip. That chip is responsible for the information the screen shows. For your laptop or smartphone to work, the screen must be able to access information from the chip. The type of chip it uses and how it communicates with the screen is integral to the security of any device. 

The chip driving the screen of your smartphone or laptop is designed for performance, not security. Simply, your phone or laptop’s screen is not secure.

“Without a secure screen, you are not secure. Period. The easy-to-use secure touchscreens of Ledger Stax and Ledger Flex are the only truly secure touchscreens in the world, battle-tested by the Donjon and third parties. Ledger Stax and Ledger Flex are the secure touchscreens to go with the insecure touchscreen in your pocket.” – Ian Rogers, Chief Experience Officer at Ledger.

Benefits of a Secure Touchscreen

Ledger’s secure touchscreens are designed to protect you from malware. 

Since they are driven directly by the secure element chip, Ledger’s secure touchscreens are resistant to physical and remote hacking—inheriting the same security model that protects your private keys. This means you can trust the details that the touchscreen of your Ledger Flex or Ledger Stax shows. 

This core feature of Ledger’s security model also helps you avoid falling victim to malware on your internet-connected devices.

For example, if your laptop is harboring malware, an attacker may be able to change the details of transactions on its screen. You might think you’re sending an asset to a friend, but in fact, the attacker is hiding the true intent of the transaction, hoping you’ll sign away your assets.

Using a Ledger device to sign the transaction, you get to verify the details on the screen of your Ledger device. If the details match what you see in Ledger Live, you can sign with confidence. If the details on your Ledger device don’t match those on your internet-connected device, your laptop or smartphone is likely infected with malware.

Introducing Ledger’s Secure Touchscreen Devices, Ledger Flex and Ledger Stax

Ledger’s secure touchscreen category consists of two devices: Ledger Stax and Ledger Flex. Let’s take a look at their features:

Ledger Stax

Ledger Stax is a first-of-its-kind device in the new category of hardware wallets with a secure touchscreen. Designed by Tony Fadell, Ledger Stax is a device of multiple firsts: the first organic TFT screen produced under 100 degrees, the first curved E Ink secure screen, and of course, the first-ever device with a truly secure touchscreen. 

It lets you set whichever image you’d like as your lock screen and name the spine—which both stay visible even when the device is on standby! It also has built-in magnets, allowing you to stack multiple Ledger Stax devices.

With its curved 3.9” E Ink touchscreen, Ledger Stax is a premium device, but at Ledger, we believe that secure touchscreens should be accessible to everyone. 

Ledger Flex

Ledger Flex launched in July 2024 as a new device in the secure touchscreen category at an attractive price point. Like Ledger Stax, Ledger Flex offers the same uncompromising security of all ledger devices with an improved user experience. It also lets you set your favorite NFT, meme, photo, or any other image as your lock screen—and the image will stay visible even when the device is on standby!

Unlike Ledger Stax, the secure E Ink touchscreen of Ledger Flex’ is 2.8”, and it is flat rather than curved, and its magnets are simply for attaching accessories. But importantly, just like all Ledger devices, the E Ink touchscreen of Ledger Flex’ is completely secure, driven directly by the Secure Element.

Ledger’s Secure Touchscreen Beyond Digital Assets

As the digital ecosystem evolves, the ability to verify your online actions and control the spread of your personal information is becoming increasingly important. To address this need, Ledger’s next-generation devices also go beyond protecting your digital assets. 

The Ledger Security Key app turns your Ledger Flex or Ledger Stax into a Passkey, allowing you to do away with passwords, avoid phishing, and log in to a range of platforms seamlessly.

Ledger devices are ideal for physical two-factor authentication and Passkey capabilities as they are resistant to malware and offer a user-friendly interface. Further, Ledger Flex and Ledger Stax stand out as the only Passkey devices with secure touchscreens!

The Secure Touchscreen: Just One Element of Ledger’s Security Model

Ultimately, without a secure screen, you are not secure, but with Ledger’s secure touchscreen, you can trust the transaction details you’re shown. 

This is one step towards making the ecosystem more secure and accessible for all users, helping to provide transparency. While most know trusting a transaction’s details is imperative, combatting the ambiguity of transactions is more complicated than it seems: a secure touchscreen is just one part of the solution. 

That’s why at Ledger, we also announced our Clear Signing Initiative, including proposing a standardized solution for translating complex transaction data. With Ledger’s clear signing standard, you can read the full details of a complex transaction before signing it. With a secure touchscreen working alongside these Clear Signing standards, you can guarantee that “what you see is what you sign—tackling the issue of accessibility head-on.

So what are you waiting for? Check out the Ledger’s secure touchscreen devices and take control of your digital security.

LEDGER™, LEDGER LIVE™, LEDGER STAX™ and LEDGER FLEX™ are trademarks owned by Ledger SAS.

E Ink® is a registered trademark of E Ink Corporation.