How exactly is the "secure environment" of the Ledger isolated from the outside world?

Then what happens when you plug your USB drive back in to send your crypto somewhere, and your system has been compromised? The "hacker" would have your private key. It's a pretty unlikely scenario if you take some level-headed precautions in the first place, but people still like the security when they're dealing with thousands of dollars worth of crypto.

There's two buttons on the side. They're used for scrolling through menus, selecting things, entering your pin number, confirming a transaction, etc.

thanks you

But how?
Obviously information can go into and out of the "secure environment", so why not the private key too?

but if i thought i had been hacked i could just format my pc and then plug my usb stick into my fresh system with all my wallets and keys then all my money would be there?

people on here have called me a noob before for thinking like this... but am i wrong?

With you private keys just in a notepad file?

Not only could they be lifted from the USB with some sneaky software, you are forced to copy and paste them into websites every time you want to spend coins which is also a good way to screw up and get your coins stolen. If you are REALLY careful it may be ok, but with Ledger you don't have to be really careful. Private key is inside, encrypted, not even you can look at it.

It's all in the hardware/firmware of the device. The private key is literally not allowed to leave. I am not an electrical engineer, but AFAIK they use a special chip and firmware to ensure security and that the private key stays put. I am sure there is a lot of reading material on the internet if you're interested.

The "thought" I was hacked is the part that would get you. The whole point of a compromised system is people don't know they've been compromised, so as soon as you plug in your USB and open up your wallet, your private key could be automatically sent to someone else and they could steal all your crypto and move it to another wallet before you even realized what was going on.

you could but you will sleep better with a nanoledger/trezor

and these ledgers, can they old all the different coins? XMR, ETH, LTC, BTC etc?

ledgerwallet.com/products/ledger-nano-s#built-in-apps

You can see the different cryptos that they support here. They offer their own wallets for things like ETH, Ripple and BTC - the others just interact with the already existing wallets. For example, if you already have an ARK wallet - you can just plug in your Ledger Nano S and it will recognize it and you can use it like a regular wallet, but the private key isn't on your computer anymore.

I believe the only down side is that the Ledger can only support about 5 different apps at the same time, so more than that and you will have to uninstall old ones. So the ledger is great just for long term holds, or when you want to secure a big fat sum of crypto.

You pretty much have to install the Chrome plug-in to use the ETH and ETH token wallet, right?

Yeah. The ETH wallet only shows ETH, if you want to access your ERC20 tokens you have to use MyEtherWallet (has in-built Ledger support)

Honestly these things are for brainlets. If you're not technologically retarded then a device like this is not necessary for not keeping your private key private.

Or just go to MyEtherWallet and tell it to open your wallet using your Ledger.

Unless you have an air gapped computer with your private key on it to sign transactions, then your security is shit tier.

Can you use your Ledger to generate a MEW wallet without the private key being shown on-screen?

Yeah, so the private key for your ETH wallet sits on your Ledger Nano S, and without the private key leaving, you can access your ETH and ERC20 tokens.