Ledger just handed one person the keys to its entire security and technology apparatus. The crypto hardware wallet company announced the appointment of Oded Blatman as both Chief Information Officer and Chief Security Officer, merging what are typically separate roles into a single position overseeing everything from product security to enterprise risk management.
The move comes as the digital asset industry grapples with $1.4 billion in hacks, with AI-powered attack vectors making exploits cheaper and faster to execute. For a company that has built its reputation on never having its signing devices compromised, the consolidation reads less like a corporate reorg and more like a war footing.
Who is Oded Blatman
Blatman arrives at Ledger from Fireblocks, the institutional digital asset infrastructure provider, where he spent five years holding a similar dual CIO/CSO role. Before that, his resume reads like a cybersecurity greatest hits compilation: national-defense cyber positions in Israel, security leadership at Israel’s largest bank, and steering the security side of Salesforce’s $1.4 billion acquisition of ClickSoftware.
His scope at Ledger will be broad. The role covers network and infrastructure security, product security, physical and workplace security, internal IT, and enterprise risk management.
Why the consolidation matters now
Ledger’s reasoning centers on the evolving threat landscape. AI-driven cyberattacks are lowering the barriers to exploitation in meaningful ways. What once required a sophisticated team and months of reconnaissance can now be partially automated, compressing both the cost and timeline of attacks.
The company has sold more than 8 million hardware wallet devices and maintains a record of zero reported hacks on its signers. Ledger also operates Ledger Donjon, its internal security research team dedicated to stress-testing products and conducting ecosystem-wide security research.
The industry backdrop
The $1.4 billion in digital asset hacks reported across the industry provides the statistical context for Ledger’s urgency. That figure represents real money lost by real people and institutions, and it has been climbing as the crypto ecosystem grows in both value and complexity.
Institutional adoption of self-custody solutions has been a growing trend, driven partly by high-profile failures of centralized custodians in recent years.