Wallet Security

This page details the cryptographic storage, session management, and encoding compatibility mechanisms used by the XE web wallet.

#Seed encryption

Private keys (seeds) are encrypted at rest using AES-GCM with PBKDF2-derived keys.

#Key derivation

The user's passphrase is fed through PBKDF2 to produce a 256-bit AES key. Each wallet has its own random salt, so the same passphrase produces different keys for different wallets.

#Encryption

A fresh random IV is generated every time a seed is encrypted (on wallet creation, import, or passphrase change). This ensures that re-encrypting the same seed produces different ciphertext.

#Storage schema

Wallet data is stored in localStorage as a JSON object:

1{2  "version": 1,3  "activeId": "w_1709123456789",4  "wallets": [5    {6      "id": "w_1709123456789",7      "name": "default",8      "encrypted": "<base64 ciphertext>",9      "salt": "<base64 salt>",10      "iv": "<base64 IV>"11    }12  ]13}

#Session management

#Idle timeout

The wallet automatically locks after 5 minutes (300,000 ms) of inactivity.

Monitored events:

• mousemove
• mousedown
• keydown
• touchstart
• scroll

Any of these events resets the idle timer. When the timer expires:

1. Lock the wallet (zero out all in-memory seeds)
2. Stop the auto-receive poller
3. Clear application state
4. Redirect to the unlock screen

#Lock behavior

When locked, all decrypted seeds are overwritten with zeros and dereferenced. The wallet transitions to a state where only the unlock form is accessible. Re-entering the passphrase decrypts all wallet seeds and resumes normal operation.

#Key operations

#Canonical encoding compatibility

The wallet must produce byte-identical canonical block encodings to the Go node for hashing and signing to work correctly. The JavaScript implementation mirrors the Go MarshalBlockCanonical function exactly:

Field ordering, padding, and endianness are identical. See Binary Encoding for the full specification.

#See also

• Wallet Overview -- feature summary and tech stack
• Wallet Features -- detailed feature reference
• Cryptography -- ed25519 and hashing primitives
• Binary Encoding -- canonical block encoding