Image by Tumisu from Pixabay
Tumisu from Pixabay

Introduction

It's become more and more crucial to concentrate on protecting your money. Numerous hackers and other cybercriminals are attempting to steal your cryptocurrency investment. Here are five essential suggestions for preventing it from happening.

Security is one of the main issues in the cryptosphere. Cryptocurrency wallets are a common target of cybercriminals, and this threat has never been more significant. The quantity of cryptocurrency that is routinely stolen is astonishing. At this point, it's a routine occurrence. Since it is anticipated that cybercrime will continue to rise, cybersecurity is evolving.

This also implies that cryptocurrency investors must safeguard their wallets. No matter how big or tiny your wallet may be, fraudsters are after it. We've compiled five suggestions to make your cryptocurrency wallet as secure as possible.

Set Up 2 Factor Authenticator for your Exchange

When you initially purchase cryptocurrency with your credit card, it is often in an exchange account on CEX App. The ability to withdraw your cryptocurrency to a wallet address under a hacker's control exists if a hacker gains access to this account.

Ensuring you buy your crypto securely and using two-factor authentication (2FA) for withdrawals in your exchange app are the most straightforward defenses against these attacks.

Every time you withdraw cryptocurrency, 2FA has you enter a code from your phone. When you want to withdraw money, it might be inconvenient if your phone's battery is dead or you have to grab it from another room. Still, it could also prevent you from losing your cryptocurrency if an attacker obtains access to your account.

If you don't have 2FA enabled, the only security measures you have for securing your crypto are your email address and password. These can be relatively simple for criminals to get around.

Your email password might be stolen, a malware file could be tricked into downloading, and an attacker could utilize the "reset password" option to take over your exchange account. They could even grab the hash of your password from another website and decode it using hash-cracking tools.

Although these are standard methods used by hackers to steal cryptocurrency from exchanges, having 2FA enabled dramatically reduces their likelihood of success.

The attacker will need to carry out these actions with 2FA activated and persuade your phone provider to switch your phone service to the attacker's phone. They can read your texts and obtain the code meant for you. The hacker must exert additional effort to accomplish the withdrawal, which is frequently enough to prevent them from carrying out the assault.

Another alternative for 2FA is Google Authenticator App.

Store your Crypto on a Hardware Wallet

Using a hardware wallet, a USB device that can contain your crucial vault is one of the best methods to safeguard your cryptocurrency. Thanks to the design, your seed phrase cannot be transferred outside of the device unencrypted.

It is difficult for an attacker to infect a hardware wallet with malware since it lacks an Internet connection.

A hardware wallet must be connected to your PC or mobile device through USB or Bluetooth each time you conduct a transaction. You may complete transactions without exposing your key to a device that can be compromised with malware since a signature is generated from within the wallet and delivered to your internet-connected device.

If your wallet is physically taken, the attacker would still have trouble accessing your cryptocurrency because hardware wallets still have pinned.

Hardware wallets have been broken utilizing advanced techniques, including hardware implants, RF signals, and memory rewrapping for microcontrollers. To carry out these attacks, they need physical access to the wallets.

If your hardware wallet is lost or stolen, you may wish to transfer your cryptocurrency from the wallet's address as soon as possible.

Cost and hassle are hardware wallets' two most significant drawbacks. Transactions using a hardware wallet typically take longer than those using a software wallet and depending on where you put your wallet, it can take some time to retrieve it. Hardware wallets also range in price from $50 to $150.

You might not want to invest money in a hardware wallet if you want to store a modest quantity of cryptocurrency. If you have a substantial cryptocurrency holding, financing could be worthwhile.

Hardware wallets are physical objects, but they still require software to function, and attackers may try to persuade you to install phony versions of the software. You should be wary of artificial software even if you don't utilize a hardware wallet.

Use Strong Passwords

The attacker shouldn't be able to access your essential vault file and obtain your seed phrase if your device is infected with malware. Because only you know your password. That is the reason. However, before the vault is entirely encrypted, an attacker may use Hashcat's password recovery tool or another hash-cracking program to guess thousands of random characters.

The intricacy of your password will determine whether they can do this swiftly and affordably. The harder it is to break a password, the longer it is. It is much harder to crack a password if it contains special characters, numerals, and both capital and lowercase letters.

No password is wholly impenetrable, but if you create one that requires years and millions of dollars worth of computational power to break, you've effectively made it difficult to hack.

Making your password too complex could make you worried that you'll forget it, but as long as you still have a backup of your seed phrase, you can still access your account even if you do.

What happens if you forget your password? Install your wallet again, and import your seed recovery phrase during installation if you still have it. Your account will be restored as a result, and you may select a new password while installing the software.

The main line is that you can secure your cryptocurrency by selecting a password that is as strong as possible.

Never Enter your Seed Phrase on a Website

If you use a browser plugin wallet, it will constantly prompt you for your password. Your password will be requested whenever you close and reopen your browser. When you come back after taking a little break, your wallet will shut and request your password.

You'll become accustomed to having your password requested.

The first time you install a browser extension wallet like Metamask, Coinbase wallet, or Brave wallet, it will request your seed phrase.

When browsing the internet, if an unexpected window that resembles your wallet pops up and requests your seed phrase. The website is fraudulent. Closing the tab and clearing the browser cache is the safest action in this situation.

You can remove and restore your wallet from a blank browser page if you believe it is broken. That should ensure you use your wallet and not a web app on a specific page when interacting.

Final Words

More individuals are downloading wallets and signing up for networks, causing the cryptocurrency market to reach new highs. However, this uptick in activity also brings an increase in thieves looking to prey on newcomers.

We've covered a variety of strategies for defending your cryptocurrency from this new breed of criminal, including utilizing 2FA, putting it in a hardware wallet, backing up your seed words, avoiding inputting it on many websites, and the value of using strong passwords.

Scammers will probably find new ways to steal cryptocurrency in the future, and we'll update this page when they do. These are some of the best safeguards for cryptocurrency in the meantime.