Hello buddies, hope y'all are doing good? In the recent past, there have been recorded cases of threats and risks associated with the crypto space. As a matter of fact, as cryptocurrency is gaining mass adoption, the sophistication at which bad actors perpetrate their nefarious activities becomes increased. In view of this, one needs to put certain measures into place so as to stay safe in the crypto space. A few days ago, we looked at the part 1 of the ways to stay safe in the crypto space. Here, we shall take the second of the three parts.
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1. Have an antivirus on your device and check the urls you click
When it comes to software attacks, you cannot be too careful because these hackers are evolving with more sophisticated hacking methods, so you need to add an extra layer of security to your device to protect your crypto wallets - particularly your software wallets. There is a need to have an antivirus installed on your device. This will enable you to stay safe from virus and malwares that can sniff into your personal details which can be used to hack into your wallet.
In addition to having an antivirus, you should also be careful of the links and urls that you click. Even with an antivirus, if you connect your wallet to an illegitimate site, they can have unauthorized access to your crypto assets. If any link looks suspicious, please do not click on it or connect your wallet to it. You should also be very attentive to even the minutest details because they can make a great deal of difference. Watch out for errors like spelling errors, syntax errors, grammatical errors, etc, in any link that is sent to you or in any site that claim to provide crypto services.
Some phishing scammers have a way of impersonating a legit website or crypto service provider and whatnot, just to make the unsuspecting victim to fall for their trickery, so you should double-check a link before accessing it. It is always advisable for users to bookmark the sites that they normally make use of so that they will be less susceptible to falling for fake websites. Also make sure that the site you are accessing is secure and beware of sites that use the unsecured hypertext transfer protocol "http" instead of the secured "https."
2. Use hardware wallets
Storing of your crypto assets is very important and goes to tell how safe it is. For people that have large collections of crypto bags, they should consider going for hardware wallet (which is a form of cold wallet - that is, wallet stored offline) instead of storing them in an online or hot wallet. Now one may ask what really is hardware wallet. In simple terms, it is a physical device that one can use to store or save their crypto assets. It is designed in a way that it is only connected online when a transaction is to be initiated, after which it will be taken offline for maximum safety.
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There are many hardware wallets to choose from with different price range and features, like the Trezor, ImKey, KeepKey, safepal, ledger, etc. Those are some of the hardware wallets to lay your hands on to save your crypto assets. Now one may wonder what the benefits of using hardware wallet is: firstly, private key is saved in the hardware wallet itself and it is not revealed when making transactions. As such, it is immune to being cloned, copied, or hacked. Also, the pins are encrypted which are used to gain access to the assets. Some hardware wallets even come with self-destruct mechanism. That is, if wrong combinations are inputted serval times, the wallet will destroy itself to protect the owner's funds.
While software wallets which are installed directly on the phone or computer are susceptible to virus attack, hardware wallets are immune to it. This is because computer viruses and malwares are largely ineffective to hardwares. Most importantly, transactions are verified and authorised in the hardware wallet, so you have to physically possess the hardware wallet to effect a transaction, which makes it the safest wallets. Hardware wallet may come at at price but it is definitely worth it.
Thanks for reading