My Background
For the Last 12 years, I have been living on the internet, year by year it gets easier, however year by year the security risks increase and it amazes me how many of my clients / people on the internet take their security for granted, as I type this now someone somewhere is getting hacked, their identity is being stolen and their bank accounts and even bitcoin wallets are being raided, off the top of my head I can think of 7-8 ways how your IP address can be traced to your wallet, scary YES.
As a freelance web developer and internet geek, I have often found myself in a position where I have had to advise clients either individual or corporate regarding internet security while I dont not claim to be an expert on the matter I do know my stuff.
A Few Ways You Can Place Your Wallet Address At Risk
- Some people actually publish their bitcoin address along with their address online.
- If you use exchanges then they know your address.
- If you use online merchants then they know your wallet address
- Server admins from hosted wallets know your address and transactions
- Spyware in your browser could be sending your details to a hacker right now.
Beyond your wallet there is much more that can be taken from you such as your identity, banking details, contact lists not to mention your porn collection (ok I just had to throw that one in there).
How Beef Up Your Security
Get a VPN there are scores on the market such as hidemyass.com totalvpn.com simply do a google search and please whatever you do, dont go for the free ones a good vpn costs between $4 - $20 dollars a month and what it does is firstly hide you behind one of their addresses which are scattered around the world and then encrypts your connection to the internet so that whatever you are doing cannot be eevesdropped on ealsly by hackers, goverment or ISP, if possible also find a vpn that has webrtc protection if not its ok we will cover that here still.
Make use of a secure web browser, you may think that your google chrome or microsoft edge is great but let me tell you when it comes to security and privacy they actually suck, so head off to the chrome store or firefox addons and get yourself a plugin that protects your privacy such as ghostery or privacy badger also find yourself a plugin that disables webrtc such as webrtc leak prevent , just one more plugin that is a must have is one that forces your browser on https such as HTTPS everywhere.
There are also some great browsers you can get with most of the protection you need built right in such as brave browser (a personal favourite) , Ice Dragon and Tor browser to mention a few.
Keep you passwords safely locked away preferably not stored on your device or PC make use of a password service such as lastpass or dashlane which are about the best two on the market but there are many others.
Keep your bitcoin address to yourself unless you use it for transactions, I personally have two wallets one is my spending wallet and the other is my bank vault nobody gets that address except my spending wallet so its pretty save and secure as nobody knows the address except me and yes its is a offline wallet, I will never trust the online variety that seems to be growing daily also.
Mobile Security
The best advice I can give for mobile security is that you use a vpn at all times, there are multiples ways a hacker can get in there so never be without it also use a good secure browser such as Ghostery Browser and keep yourself safe.
