Protect yourself… protecting your money!

If we are indeed to be our own bank its very important for one to know the basic about protection. So the first thing I’d ask you to is to forget all that you have seen in the movies where the hacker writes a couple of lines of code almost like he was sleeping and that’s that! It’s not! In the blockchain you are in control so the attacker will have to be very skilled in order to get to your funds. Let’s make it harder for them while easy for you.

This is how they are getting to you

1. Cold storage I’ve heard recently some advocating that cold storage wouldn't improve the safety of your tokens, yet either you hand over the private key (via keylogger for instance) or no dice. Never save your private keys in your hard drive nor your tokens in hot wallets.
2. Passwords/phrases You guys should really get to change those every 6 months, like you do with a toothbrush. Believe it or not most people in crypto are becoming more at ease as regarding this matter and it can be a harsh mistake. Also unique and different for every purpose. Use “Bee@w3S0mE=) as an example of a strong funny password. Get creative and remember always over 13 characters and use Caps and nrs, go wild on the special characters. Note them down in a notebook and save it in a safe place.
3. Social Media Scams “ With this app you’re going to make money while you sleep”, “Send 0.1 ETH get 10 ETH” and the list would go on and on and will keep growing as the space keeps growing as well. For everyone to have an idea just facebook lost something like a 1/3 of its revenue from ads which would amount to more than the total market cap of the entire crypto market… so don’t think it’s just in crypto… it’s really everywhere!! And they acknowledge that in the very tiny little letters. I won’t even go for fake celebrities because that’s too low bar. The same goes for that hot girl that loves your posts even when they are so empty of meaning.
4. Be Paranoid! Is the World out to get you? No. But it never hurt to be at least a bit paranoid and I can certainly assure you guys that it saved me more than I can count by now ( promise not keeping track, not THAT paranoid). I’ll leave you guys some numbers to bring out your paranoia as well. Cybercrime costs 1.5 $ Trillion today and will cost 6 $ Trillion by 2021. 91% of sophisticated attacks (like banks or hospitals) started by spear phishing mails. Now to dial it down a bit don’t worry in crypto and in 2017 alone it was just 1.2 $ Billion.
5. When https doesn't mean a thing! Because lets face it, really isn't being assertive if you’re handling money online and not protecting your money ONLINE (damn it even makes sense). So yes, try to stay on https but install Metacert’s Cryptonite (which will tell you what’s crypto and what’s not, at least for the greater part). Because if I can get to you and explain how you went to the bank, and gave me your username and password, then used your paypal and gave me your username and password (all this without a keylogger). Be sure to keep those on your bookmarks( I mean the REAL ones).
6. SEO optimizing/ fake google ads. This goes out for those who still think that google is the best thing since… like ever! Don’t feel ashamed to fall for this one because the Secret Services did as well and the trick is almost as old as the internet itself, but if people keep falling… And this is been happening for long before the internet. and will keep going, unless we change mentalities. The scammers don’t need that much they’d make more working it on security for instance. Just skip the ads!!!
7. Bots. Doesn't really matter either you’re on Slack or Telegram they’ll hit you as the plague hit Venice! So “report as spam” and block if you get hold of one (I'm quite sure you will) also go to your settings > privacy and security > groups> who can add me to groups and chats? My contacts! Also disable the auto-download of media this you’ll find under settings > data and storage > Auto-download media (keep it turned off) you never know. Still on this but really more just telegram faced use the fingerprint if using mobile is a 2FA and the more the merrier! Once more here Metacert’s help can be great.
8. Copy paste much? Say you see and address you want to send some coins/tokens to. You would copy paste that address then into the wallet mobile or otherwise and send the funds right? WRONG!!! For those who never heard of it there is this thing called a cryptoshuffler (it basically manages to swap your address for theirs, nice right? Option a) use the QR code you just can’t go wrong there (if you don’t know don’t stress). I’d say type the code manually (but it would be equally dangerous due to keyloggers) which would then have your private key (but not your public one), and run frequent security scans.
9. Fake Apps. This is really my personal favourite. Have you ever seen those apps that will tell you your horoscope, a stupid game, to put it simply something that people will be willing to download because this will grab everything. Not with the game but with the junkware that tags along. I’ll just say smart phones… stupid people?!?! Also be very careful with fake paypal fake banking apps and pretty much everything. Don’t go for the note on App Store or Google play check the comments (are they human? And not just the first ones or the best ones)
10. SMS 2FA. I think there’s nothing more to tell here just don’t use it, unless it’s the only 2FA because its better than none! Use Authy or Google Authenticator, not even going to the top notch Finney because then we’d be at least in theory talking about 3FA. That will be sooner rather than later.
11. Email Phishing Scams. Again older than the internet used to be postal fraud now disseminated via internet. No credit nor claps, no matter how perfect it is. Dear costumer it says it doesn't have your name garbage. Or it even does have your name but it was something you didn't even searched for! So??? DO NOT CLICK the links nor open the files even if they say they are from the Government (as they do so often). Be aware of the .pif .scr and pretty much all office files, basically if you don’t know the sender you don’t open it! Sometimes you might think you know him but you really don’t. Once more the importance of a good anti virus must be stressed!! Can be a life safer! Also I’d take a quick read on phishing and how to prevent it.
12. Wifi hacking. Now I know what you’re all thinking by now… seen one too many movies right? No! Even inside your home you should be safe and as some use krack attacks to get into your WPA which would allow attackers to easly clone pretty much anything. so keep your Wifi updated, use VPN for your sake. I know it might seem very basic to some of you but unless you change your default password they’ll keep coming. Also and this isn't really wifi hacking don’t connect yourself to public networks. Unless they’re small and trustworthy (in that case they shouldn't be public).

I could go on because it’s too easy to scam people but… let’s stay positive support crypto based projects Brave instead of Duckgogo (and even more Google of course), also Metacert and for VPN Mysterium. So I guess nothing more for me to say other than stay safe and do know that if they really want to get you they will (unless you exclude yourself totally from social activities) 90% hackers use VPN only most of the ones caught didn't. While in the VPN part be careful with your data once more because most free (if not all) VPN (collect data).

So what to do? Have several wallets a be sure not to ever use them in the same device unless you’re 100% sure it’s clean (good luck with that), jump locations its easier to target you if you’re standing still. Use AntiVirus/ Malware. And be sure to really run them, not just have them. Also keep checking the security features that the scammers will be breaking so that you can improve as well! Oh, don’t put all your eggs in the same basket. Get several wallets so that even if one of them gets hacked, stay positive you won’t loose it all! And to end this in beauty get some ENS and NNS just in case that will simplify things by A LOT (here I’d suggest for you to get your names or screen names + names with typos) because you never know.