While blockchain point is to let people share valuable data in a secure way, it doesn’t mean the blockchain environment is a fully secure system for users.
Thanks to sophisticated math and software rules, blockchain data are extremely difficult to be manipulated by attackers. The nature of the blockchain makes it difficult to tamper the ecosystem from an hacker perspective.
However, even the best designed blockchain system can fail or get messy when it comes in contact with humans.
Hackers can, for instance, break into so called hot wallets: hot wallets, that are wallets owned by online cryptocurrency exchanges (centralized), have become prime targets.
6 best practices to enhance your wallet security
There’s a surprising security risk regarding your digital wallet, and few cryptocurrency investors are aware of the best practices to use in order to prevent bad things to happen:
1. Avoid keeping your funds in an exchange. Although a convenient service, it is extremely dangerous, as you’re relying on a third part to look after them. Being able to store your assets online and accessing them from the browser at any time sounds like an advantage, but in doing so, the user is relying on the online wallet provider to be honest and tamper-proof.
2. Pay attention to your browsers. Avoid fake websites and emails, known as “phishing”, that aim to steal your information. Always check the domain you’re visiting.
3. Separate your funds, spread your cryptocurrency among several wallets. By having different addresses, in case something bad happens you are going to be covered. Moreover, people cannot know for certain how much money you have.
4. Use cold storage, store private keys offline. Consider using a dedicated hardware wallet.
5. Tell a trusted friend or family member, someone who might inherit your wealth, about your investments. Provide them with all the details needed to access your wallets in case anything unfortunate happens to you.
6. Make use of fragmented backups. If you are still worried about the safety of your private key, then create fragmented backup: this will divide the seed into six fragments, you can then store each fragment on various locations. Before a thief could get access to your wallet, he would need to first have access to each of the six fragments which is extremely difficult.
To easily create your first Noku Wallet and start managing your funds, check out our previous post.
