HACKERS ARE EVERYWHERE — How to keep your crypto wealth safe

Yes, hackers are everywhere and even a small mistake you make can let them steal all your crypto assets. And once they are gone, it is too late to think about how you could prevent it. So don't let that happen and enjoy new article from Crypto Community Foundation.

EXCHANGES

There is so many crypto exchanges operating in the crypto world and many of them are shady. On Coin Market Cap you can see the overview of the biggest exchanges expressed by their 24 hour volume. It is more likely that established exchanges operating with high volume are going to be more legit than smaller exchanges. On Reddit and Twitter you can often find posts about problems related to deposits/widthrawals issues or bad customer service provided by such an exchanges. Before you will decide to send your crypto to any exchange, do your research. Below you can find some tips how to avoid your assets being lost or stolen — already happened couple of times (Mt.Gox, btc-e, Coincheck, Bitgrail,..).

• use trusted exchanges as binance.com, bittrex.com, coinbase.com (gdax.com) or bitmex.com (for trading with leverage)
• create new email account for setting up account on any exchange and this email use only for this purpose, never share this email with someone else
• immediately turn on 2FA (Two Factor Authentication) — for example Google Authenticator is the most favorite one. Google Authenticator is app in your phone generating access codes every 30 seconds. Once you turn on 2FA for any account, you will have to scan QR code through this application and then new line with code will be generated in your app. *Important — print out or save your backup key — if you will loose your phone not having backup key, you will have to contact customer service of every exchange or service to disable your 2FA, it might take long time for them to process this request
• using sms confirmation is not as safe as to use 2FA
• always set up 2FA for signing in, not for widthrawals only — hackers can use sophisticated methods how to transfer your cryptocurrencies to their accounts without need to withdraw them

PASSWORDS

• make your password strong — use uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters, never use date of your birth, your name or anything familiar to you that can be easily guessed
• for every account set up different password
• never store your passwords in your browser — it can be easily stolen
• use Keepass —it is free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key file. So you only have to remember one single master password or select the key file to unlock the whole database. The databases are encrypted using the best and most secure encryption algorithms currently known (AES and Twofish)

EMAIL

• set up 2FA for your email account as well
• use big providers as is gmail.com or protonmail.com — developed by CERN and MIT scientist, uses client-side encryption to protect email contents and user data before they are sent to ProtonMail servers, in contrast to other common email providers such as Gmail and Outlook.com
• never send your login details via email or social media
• do not store your passwords and login details on cloud such as icloud, google drive, dropbox, if you want to store it on cloud, option is to use encrypted mega.co.nz
• beware of phishing emails — never click on any link or open any file from email you don't know
• as an option to Microsoft Outlook you can use Thunderbird desktop client

OTHER

• never keep your crypto assets on exchanges — they often got hacked and you might lose everything
• the best option is to keep your crypto on hardware wallets — Trezor or Ledger Wallet , the only thing is they don't support every crypto currency
• another option is to create cold wallet, generating wallet offline. The best way how to find official wallet is to visit official website of cryptocurrency you would like to store and on the website should be link to download officially supported wallet
• print out your recovery seed and private key and store it somewhere save,good idea would be to have them store at two different places for occasions like fire, earthquake,..
• never share your private key, it would be like giving away keys and address from your house with the note you are leaving city for holidays to some stranger, only share your public key
• all ERC20 tokens can be stored in wallet you can create at myetherwallet.com and then to access them is most secure to use metamask Google or Firefox extension
• do not install untrusted or unknown browser extensions — hackers can use them as entrance point to your system
• if you are not using Java and Flash necessarily — uninstall them, they are huge security flaw
• keep all your programs updated, for example Adobe products got sometimes security flaws that can be used by hackers, by updating your applications you will avoid this
• if you can, use some old computer to deal only with crypto and nothing else
• always use antivirus — Avast, AVG, Norton, ..
• never log on to your exchange accounts or wallets from public wifi (cafes, airports, shopping malls) — all the traffic can be watched by hackers
• at home use cable to connect your pc to the internet, if you have to use wifi router, make sure you have set strong password, never use the default one
• encrypt your data — your hard drive and mobile phone — you can use CipherShed for example
• entering any website like email, exchange — link should always start with https:// — it means the connection is encrypted. Next to the link should be icon of lock as well and by clicking on it you can see webpage SSL Certificate — like this you can make sure you are not on phishing website

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