Top 10 Tips To Stay Your Cryptocurrency Safe. While the method of shopping for cryptocurrency is fairly easy, the method of storing it securely requires completely different knowledge and skills. So there’s an urgent need for ideas that help maintain the protection and safety of cryptocurrencies.
As is well-known, encrypted digital currencies rely on cryptography. Cryptography is that the study of secure communication techniques.
Cryptocurrency prices are on the rise, and a lot of investors are buying crypto for the first time. But while investors see this as a great opportunity, so do hackers, scammers, and other criminal types who see these new investors as easy prey. While there are several pitfalls of crypto investing to avoid, keeping your funds safe is certainly high on the priority list.
The cryptocurrency exchange Liquid was hacked in August 2021, losing over $97 million worth of crypto.1 In January 2022, another $30 million in Bitcoin and Ethereum was stolen from North American exchange Crypto.com.2
With all these attacks against crypto investors, you may wonder how you can beef up your digital security and protect your crypto from being stolen. Should you keep your crypto in an exchange? What about using a hardware wallet? Should you store a screenshot of your password in case you forget it?
So it is said that it’s impossible to hack a blockchain, or hack a non-public key, because trying to crack an algorithm protected by encryption requires an enormous amount of computational power that’s not available in today’s computers. However, the threat isn’t such a lot about cracking encryption because it is geared toward misuse of users targeted by scammers and hackers.
Beware of Phishing Scams
Phishing are often defined as a fraudulent try to obtain sensitive information from a user by masquerading as a trustworthy entity. Scammers use a really common fraud technique which involves creating a fake mirror of the exchange platform or web wallet page employed by cryptocurrency holders.
They deceive the victim by sending him a convincing message. Unfortunately, they are deceived by this message, and then other procedures begin, which is immediate entry. There are many cases where people who are being scammed interact with scams. The scammers then use this data to try and do what they need. To avoid phishing, ensure that the link displayed in your browser is that the same as that of your trading platform or web wallet.
Avoid Storing Cryptocurrencies in Cryptocurrency Exchanges:
Even though you’ll take the proper actions towards the safety of your cryptocurrency, that doesn’t mean that your cryptocurrency trading platform may do the identical. As there are many cases within the past that have proven that these platforms will be hacked or escape with users’ money. this might ensue to technical errors or exposure to hacks.
If you’re not about to trade your cryptocurrency anytime soon, transfer your cryptocurrency from the trading platform to your external wallet. And if you insist and wish to store your cryptocurrencies in exchanges, you’ll try a number of the famous platforms such as: “Coinbase”, “eToro”, “Binance” and “Kraken” … as these platforms are trustworthy and have proven themselves, and accordingly, your currencies are going to be Digital is safer on these platforms.
Purchasing a Hardware Wallet:
A hardware wallet is usually mentioned mutually of the safest ways to store digital currencies. A hardware wallet is defined as a physical device that holds the private key and makes it safe from the eyes of criminals and provides the user quick access to his cryptocurrency, because it isn’t connected to the net.
Popular hardware wallets are divided into: Trezor, Ledger (Nano S), and KeepKey.
Private keys are stored within an impenetrable circuit. Hardware wallets allow users to sign transactions with one click. And let’s not forget that the hardware wallet also comes with a “recovery phrase”. The recovery phrase is 12-24 words that allow users to transfer keys to a different wallet if the device is stolen or lost.
Avoid Public Wi-Fi Networks:
Wi-Fi can turn your browser into any page. But sometimes the conversion is also towards a well-matched copy of the original that simulates the trading platform or can also mimic the wallet you are using.
Therefore, behind the general public network “Wi-Fi” are going to be ready to collect the info transmitted over the network, and if it carries the password you typed, So we recommend that you just don’t hook up with your wallet from a public Wi-Fi network.
You can use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) if necessary. it’s a way wont to add privacy and security to non-public and public networks, like the net and Wi-Fi hotspots. As companies mostly use VPN to guard their sensitive data.
Device Safety Guarantee:
It is important to possess an updated firewall and antivirus software. ensure to not install any software if you’re not completely sure of it. you ought to never download any suspicious attachments.
Before installing any software on your system, make sure to try and do thorough research about its reputation. you’ll be able to use Google or social media platforms like Reddit or perhaps ask your friends about it.
Enable Two-factor authentication:
Two-factor authentication refers to a further layer of security that has been added to perform identification. This makes it difficult for hackers to invade the wallet and hack it, and it is also difficult for them to target your account on the trading platforms.
because the password alone is prone to cyber attacks. But not all the time cryptocurrency wallet exchanges require two-factor authentication, or we could say most of them.
Whenever you first buy cryptocurrency, it will generally be in an exchange account. If a hacker gets access to this account, they can “withdraw” your crypto to a wallet address under their own control.
One of the easiest things you can do to help thwart these attacks is to first make sure you purchase your crypto safely, and then turn on two-factor authentication (2FA) for withdrawals in your exchange app.
2FA requires you to input a code from your phone every time you make a crypto withdrawal. It can be a nuisance if your phone’s battery has died or if you have to get your phone from another room when you want to withdraw, but it could also save you from losing your crypto if an attacker gets access to your account.
If you don’t have 2FA enabled, you have to rely entirely on the security of your email address and password to protect your crypto. These can be pretty easy for bad actors to circumvent.
An attacker may be able to steal your password hash from another website and break it using hash-cracking software, or they may be able to trick you into downloading a malware file through email, steal your email password, and use the “reset password” feature to take control of your exchange account.
These are standard techniques hackers use to steal crypto from an exchange, but having 2FA enabled makes them much less likely to succeed.
With 2FA enabled, the attacker will need to perform these steps plus convince your phone company to transfer your phone service to the attacker’s phone. That will allow them to receive your text messages and get the code intended for you. It’s an extra layer of effort the hacker has to go through to make the withdrawal, and it’s often enough to deter them from completing the attack.
Do Not Enter The Pumping and unloading Groups:
Pumping and dumping may be a tactic employed by a gaggle of individuals or influencers to get hype to urge many folks to shop for cryptocurrency at the identical time.
And after you do all that, the value of the cryptocurrency targeted for pumping and dumping begins to rise dramatically and precisely, and this allows the organizers of this tactic to sell and leave everyone suspended for a temporary period.
at a better price. This practice is prohibited within the cryptocurrency and traditional markets.
Therefore, we advise that you simply should stand back from it to stay your cryptocurrencies safe. The organizers try to lure you by inviting you to participate by promising big returns. But the truth is the opposite, which is that only the organizers will benefit from it, not you.
Use Tough Passwords:
When creating a wallet or cryptocurrency trading platform account, you wish a really secure password. It are often a password, letters, uppercase and lowercase letters, symbols, etc. Tourism also use online password generators to induce a secure password.
Password generator during a safe place. the simplest you’ll be able to store could be a piece of paper.
If you use an authenticator app such as Google Authenticator for your 2FA, then your exchange account can be even more secure. Authenticator apps don’t use SMS text messaging to send you the withdrawal code, which means the attacker still can’t get your withdrawal code even if they transfer your phone service to themselves or mirror your messages.
If you use an authenticator app, then the hacker would need to get possession of your phone to get the 2FA code. That’s a much stronger layer of defense than using SMS.
Even if you have 2FA enabled, an attacker may be able to bypass the security of the exchange itself. In this case, you could lose your crypto through no fault of your own. If the exchange is hacked, then you could also be subject to withdrawal holds or other policies that keep you from accessing your crypto. This is where withdrawing your crypto can be useful.
More on this in our guide to staying safe with crypto keys and passwords, but let’s take a 30,000-foot view. If your device is infected with malware, then the attacker shouldn’t be able to read your key vault file and get your seed words. That’s because (hopefully) no one knows your password except you.
But an attacker may be able to use Hashcat’s password-recovery tool or other hash-cracking software to guess thousands of random characters until the vault is successfully decrypted.3
Whether they can do this cheaply and quickly depends on how complex your password is. The longer the password, the more difficult it is to crack. If a password has both capital and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters, then it’s even more difficult to crack.
No password is completely uncrackable, but, if you make one that takes several years and millions of dollars’ worth of computing power to crack, for all practical purposes it may as well be impossible to hack.
You may worry that you’ll forget your password if you make it too complicated, but you can restore access to your account even if you forget it — as long as you still have a backup of your seed words.
What if you’ve forgotten your password? If you still have your seed words, then just uninstall your wallet, reinstall it, and import your seed words during installation. That will restore your account, and you can choose a new password during the installation process.
The bottom line is that you can protect your crypto by choosing a password that is as strong as possible.
Keep Your Collectibles:
Previously there have been many cases of abuse or maybe murder by bad actors trying to steal their cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency theft looks attractive to both criminals and fraudsters because of its anonymous nature.
within the event that funds are stolen from a checking account, they will usually be linked to an entity and retrieved, but within the crypto market the holder of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can’t be traced.
Therefore, you must never tell anyone what proportion cryptocurrency you own, to avoid being targeted.
It is worth noting that over the past few years, cryptocurrency theft has become a really common practice. Its growing popularity and therefore the privacy it holds has attracted the eye of the many hackers because the cryptocurrency market is getting more profitable once a year.
But as we mentioned within the above tips, prevention is healthier than cure and following the following tips and applying them will prevent losing your cryptocurrencies.
Beware Bitcoin Gambling Sites:
Many people are drawn to gambling with bitcoin due to the anonymity it provides. Anonymity can sometimes be harmful. Many bitcoin gambling sites don’t reveal the identity of the positioning owner.
This makes it difficult to test if the platform has the suitable licenses, or if there’s a guarantee that your cryptocurrency won’t be stolen. to stay your cryptocurrency safe, you ought to avoid Bitcoin gambling sites within the first place.
Withdraw Your Crypto
Exchanges often have millions of dollars’ worth of crypto stored in them. With that much loot available, they make enticing targets for scammers everywhere. One way to avoid this potentially devastating threat is to just withdraw your cryptocurrency from the exchange.
To withdraw your crypto, you’ll need to download a wallet and set it up on your PC, then instruct your exchange to send your crypto to your new wallet address.
Once you’ve done this, an attacker can no longer steal your crypto by gaining access to your exchange account or hacking the exchange itself. Instead, the attacker would effectively need to compromise your PC to get your crypto.
Since you probably don’t run around telling everyone you store loads of crypto on your PC, it’s probably less of a target than an exchange. Withdrawing your crypto can be a simple and effective way to reduce the threat of crypto theft.
To recap seed words, keep the following security measures in mind:
- Back up your seed words on a physical piece of paper.
- Keep the backup in a safe place where it can’t catch fire or get water damage.
- Don’t keep plaintext copies or screenshots of your seed words on your PC.
- Keep the location of your physical backup a secret.
- If your device crashes, then use your seed words to recover your accounts.
Now let’s talk about your password, which should be Fort Knox strong.
Fake Web Apps
Wallets aren’t the only type of crypto software scam. An attacker can also create a fake website that looks just like a legitimate one but has a slightly different spelling in its URL. The site may lead to different smart contracts from the legitimate one, and these smart contracts may be malicious. An attacker can use this to steal your crypto almost as easily as with a fake wallet.
For example, maybe you want to swap your 1Dai for Viper on ViperSwap. You navigate to what you think is the official website for ViperSwap, but you misspelled the URL when or clicked an advertisement posted by scammers when you searched for the site on Google.
You’re now on a fake version of ViperSwap, and, when you attempt to make the swap, you’re told you need to approve your tokens to be spent by the exchange. After you approve the tokens, all your 1Dai is drained from your wallet and you get nothing in return.
In most cases, this happens because the malicious “exchange” has a line of code that allows the owner to transfer your tokens to themselves. If you had not approved it to spend your 1Dai, then the 1Dai contract would have blocked the transaction. Because you made the approval, the token contract allowed the malicious Dapp to steal your tokens.
There are a few techniques you can use to avoid this kind of attack.
Use only Dapps you trust. If you feel comfortable reading code, then you can look up the contract addresses in the developer’s documents and find the code in a block explorer. In this case, you can verify whether there are weird “ownerOnly” or “adminOnly” functions in the Dapp that could allow the developer to steal your tokens.
If you don’t feel comfortable reading Solidity, then just avoid Dapps that are too new to have been vetted by independent programmers.
Make sure you use only the official website for an app.
In most cases, it will be the first site in the organic search results in Google, Bing, etc. If there is any question, then you can check crypto news sites and other reputable sources to make sure you’ve got the right URL.
Check the lock icon to the left of the URL. If the site has been hacked, it will usually fail its SSL certification, which will cause the lock to appear red. Your browser may also warn you that the site is unsafe.
Double check contract addresses. If you have to call an “approve” function to allow a Dapp to use your tokens, then make sure the contract address that pops up in your wallet is the same as the one mentioned in the developer’s documents. That way, you won’t accidently approve a contract to spend your tokens that you didn’t actually intend to approve.
