Hey folks, in the time of the bull market when it seems like you can make money from blindly buying almost any token, I felt that it might be a good time to do a deep dive on Wallet Guard, a free-to-use app that after having used myself for the last month — I now think of as a must, especially for those new to the cryptospace who may feel some anxiety from all the approvals, swaps, sends, receives that your wallet asks you to go through.
And before we get started, a big shout out to DP Carib from the Carib DAO, who made using Wallet Guard as one of their Zealy Quests, had they not done this, I may have never heard about it.
What is Wallet Guard?
As I mentioned before, in a nutshell Wallet Guard is a free-to-use app (or technically a browser extension) that syncs up to your wallet that helps ensure you are “guarded” from malicious sites, approvals, or even websites. There are several other cool features (which I’ll get into later), but let’s talk the one that I think most important first: Easy to interpret interactions.
After installing Wallet Guard, you’ll immediately notice it going to work whenever you try to perform any action in your crypto wallet. Take this a simple Metamask swap for instance — you’ll see really no description of what you’re swapping, let alone whether or not you’re actually doing a swap:
On the other hand with Wallet Guard, they’ll spell out in simple terms what it is that you’re actually confirming — that it is in fact a swap, and what it is you’re actually swapping for:
At the bottom of the graphic you’ll also notice that Wallet Guard acts as not only a simplified translator of the action you’re about to confirm, but also it allows you verify if what you’re signing is actually what you intended to sign. And besides just interpreting swaps, Wallet Guard will interpret any action that you’re trying to confirm. In other words, if you’re wallet prompts you to do an action, Wallet Guard will precede your wallet’s prompt for that action, essentially giving you twice the chance to stop yourself from making a critical mistake.
Other Features
As I mentioned before, besides acting as a transaction translator, there’s a ton of other security features that Wallet Guard has to offer. These include but are not limited to…
Wallet Scanner:
As you can see in the graphic above, Wallet Guard can scan your wallet for high risk approvals, transaction history analysis, you’re exposure to hacks and exploits, whether you’re wallet is up-to-date, or whether or not you’re exposed to honey pots.
Approval Checker/Revoker: Of particular note from the wallet scanner is the ‘High Risk Approvals’ check that Wallet Guard performs — a check your open/active permissions, giving you the ability to close them if you choose to do so. I’ve written before about the dangers of keeping old permissions open and how to check/close them through platforms through platforms like De.Fi and Revoke.cash, but essentially Wallet Guard allows you to do this within the extension itself, which in my opinion is one-step safer as you’re removing the possibility of clicking on a fake phishing Revoke phishing link. (To note, Revoke has their own browser extension as well that appears to work pretty as well too.)
Anti-Phishing tools: Speaking of phishing links, Wallet Guard also lists out verified protocols and all of their official links, which can prevent you from getting you connected to something malicious:
If your favorite protocol isn’t available on their list, the wallet will also prompt you if you’d like to request that it is, and in addition to verified links, Wallet Guard will help you identify whether or not a site is suspicious, or whether or not it was created recently — a red flag for a typical phishing site:
Additional features
Apart from the main ones I’m listing above, Wallet Guard also helps detect other suspicious activity by…
✓ identifying wallet drainers — where an attacker gains full unauthorized access to your wallet
✓ identifying malicious extensions that are trying to get on your browser
✓ pre-reviewing transaction requests by running a real-time simulation
Other Considerations
2023 DDoS attack — Last March, Wallet Guard dealt with a DDoS attack, where they got spammed with 600 millions request per minute. Although the attack lasted several hours and stopped some of their services, reportedly no user data was compromised.
Security — The Wallet Guard docs make it pretty clear that unless you’re allowing it to scan your wallet (see ‘Wallet Scanner’ section) the Wallet Guard extension technically doesn’t connect with your wallet, yet even if you do a wallet scan, your seed phrases and private keys aren’t exposed.
As I mentioned before, it’s free — From what I’ve gathered, Wallet Guard is a private company that’s had funding from angel investors and a few VCs, but there are currently no subscription fees, taxes, or any sort of advertising when you use their services. The docs say that there could be some ‘premium features’ which would cost money in the future, but right now it’s free.
Giveaways — Until January 24th, they’re currently doing a giveaway to win an AKCB NFT for those who have run a security scan using their app, and if you use my referral link, you can support me by getting me an additional entry as well too!:
Conclusion
No matter how experienced you may be with Crypto, it seems like a no brainer that it’s a good idea to use Wallet Guard (or something like it) in order to help prevent you from getting scammed. Have you used anything similar? Perhaps Revoke Cash’s latest app? If so I’d be interested in hearing it in the comments below.
Also, no matter how good Wallet Guard may be, please Don’t rely on just an app to keep you secure — you should never rely on one single app to maintain your security. It’s important to have good security measures and opsec with whatever you do, including avoiding suspicious links, people claiming that they’ll double your $BTC in minutes, etc.
And as always, thanks for taking the time to read this and be sure to follow me on twitter (https://twitter.com/CryptosWith) to get all my latest updates. Also, looking for a gift for your Crypto-loving/hating friend? Give them a REKT journal to cheer them up!