HERE ARE 10 BEST WAYS TO PROTECT YOUR CRYPTO INVESTMENT
10 easy ways to protect your crypto investments As cryptocurrency continues to gain value, scammers and hackers are actively on the hunt for any opportunity to steal your investments. Here we will learn how to enhance the security of our cryptocurrency investments quickly and easily. We will discuss common scams that occur and products we can use to further secure our cryptocurrency.
Let’s learn how we can further secure our crypto before going over available security and protection options let’s first go over three important things we need to keep in mind regarding securing our crypto.
if you have your own hardware software or mobile cryptocurrency wallet make sure you never ever under any circumstances give anyone any company or any website your 12 or 24 word private key seed phrase
Scammers and hackers are inundating us with tons of phishing messages and emails constantly, so a good rule of thumb is to never ever click on any links you receive via e-mail or text, because at the end of the day scammers are trying to get three things from you.
one your wallet seed phrase two your login credentials to your cell phone provider in financial institutions like crypto exchanges regular banks paypal etc and three they want to try and glean as much information from you like your phone number address and similar which they will use to try and reset login credentials to your cell phone provider and financial institutions to try and gain access. don’t click on any strange links.
Be sure to double and triple check the websites you are accessing to ensure you are reaching the correct and official site, as scammers set up fake websites all the time to try and get your seed phrase login credentials and any other information that can be used to try and reset your password.
MALWARE PROTECTION
let’s learn how we can all further secure our crypto together first and foremost if you do not have some form of malware protection on your computer you are literally insane in fact if you don’t as soon as you are done reading this article get a malware scan of your computer and then get yourself some malware protection.
my personal favorite malware service solution is malwarebytes try out their free malware scan and malware removal feature that comes with a 14-day trial of their premium services whether you choose malwarebytes or another malware provider all that matters is that you get your computer scanned and get any detected malware removed and get your computer secured
VPN- VIRTUAL PRIVATE NETWORK
What is a vpn? vpn stands for virtual private network which is just a service that allows you to connect to public networks like wi-fi through an encrypted tunnel that protects your privacy while you’re online. It keeps your identity private by hiding your IP address and masking your location.
Any data that passes through while your device is connected to the internet is safe. vpns prevent people, companies etc from watching and tracking your online activity as a crypto investor using vpns can protect you when you’re connected to public networks as some hackers have ways to steal your data when connected to public networks. so my personal favorite vpn provider is NORDVPN. It’s extremely easy to set up and very user friendly.
CREATING NEW EMAIL ADDRESS
by creating a new and separate email address with a handle we’ve never used before with an encrypted email service provider to use exclusively for crypto encrypted email services prioritize privacy and security which will protect you from potential scammers or hackers from one breaching the account and two if they are able to reset the password all the previous emails are encrypted meaning they wouldn’t be able to see them.
If you decide to create a new email address, I highly recommend checking out email providers like PROTONMAIL that prioritize privacy and security in order to gain access.
For encrypted email, you can also consider CTEMPLAR. CTEMPLAR is based out of one of my favorite companies
Top countries of all time: Iceland. Iceland has some of the most robust privacy laws in the world allowing anonymous browsing and immediate deletion of personal information. CTemplar considers itself the most secure anonymous encrypted email provider.
they support anonymous usage and do not retain your personal data meaning nothing can be revealed if requested.l so with a new or old email address alike you need to ensure you have a unique and strong password that you don’t use anywhere else to access the account and also be sure to enable two-factor authentication wherever possible
TWO-FACTOR AUTHENTICATION
Two-factor authentication devices like YUBIKEY. You need to remove your cell phone number as a way to access or recover access to accounts you use associated with cryptocurrency like exchanges email accounts, bank accounts and anything related to financial account access.
This includes your cell phone with sms text two-factor authentication as it is extremely dangerous. This is because scammers conduct something we will discuss later called sim theft to steal your money and crypto. instead of using sms text message as a form of two-factor authentication you can use mobile apps like google authenticator.
the superior way to set up two-factor authentication is with dedicated hardware two-factor authentication devices like YUBIKEY so what is yubikey it is a hardware authentication device created for the sole purpose of securing your accounts by providing the highest level of phishing defense while being extremely easy to use. they come in several shapes and sizes available for devices like mac and microsoft computers as well as mobile devices like cell phones and tablets
SIM SWAPPING
It protects you from one of the most dangerous types of hacks and scams known as sim swapping sim theft or sim swapping is one of the biggest risks to cryptocurrency investors.
So what is sim swapping? Sim swapping is when scammers hijack phone numbers and redirect them to new phone with a different sim card. This means that all of your text messages and phone calls are instantly redirected to a different phone in the hands of a scammer.
so any text message two-factor authentication you have set up to access important accounts is now going directly to a scammer they will use your hijacked cell phone number to try to reset passwords to your exchanges to gain access and withdraw any funds from your account and if you have a bank or card connected to the exchanges they hacked into.
they will be able to also train those accounts to buy crypto and then withdraw that crypto to their own wallets during that process they can also become privy to what bank accounts you use and with your hijacked phone number they will try to hack into your traditional bank accounts as well to initiate wire transfers or similar to steal your funds.
However, that’s not all they can do if they know your email address. They can log in and see all accounts that your email address is associated with and attack those too, therefore the importance of switching to an encrypted email service like protonmail or ctemplar.
So yeah you can see how SIM theft sim swapping is bad news. You will not run into this problem, however, if you follow the advice I gave earlier and remove SMS text two-factor authentication from all of your accounts and remove your phone number as an account recovery source and make an investment in Yubikey devices, you will not face this problem.
how do you know if you’ve become a victim of sim theft or sim-swapping well it can be hard to know when it occurs if your phone is always connected to wi-fi because messages and certain notifications will still come through you wouldn’t know when a sim swap has occurred until you go to make a phone call aren’t receiving phone calls for a while
or if you are off wi-fi and your cellular services aren’t working at all scammers conduct sim-swapping by calling your cell phone provider over and over and over again each time trying to get new bits of information from the cell phone support team to use for their next call eventually they will glean enough information like your name, cell phone number, pin number etc to convince your cell phone provider to redirect your phone number to a new device.
Therefore, now that you are officially terrified of sim swapping and sim theft, we offer you the following advice to quell your fears I strongly recommend EFANI as a secure mobile service, as it offers protection against sim swaps, fake towers, location tracking, spam calls and texts, malware, and eavesdropping
They use military grade verification encryption, offer 24-7 365 support and they protect you up to five million dollars for financial losses resulting from a sim hack.
SHIELD FOLIO NOTEBOOK
I’m a big proponent of paper notebooks for safely recording and storing sensitive cryptocurrency information like private keys and interestingly enough. a notebook dedicated specifically to storing cryptocurrency exists and it’s called shield folio stonebook the shield folio stonebook is a 100 offline notebook solution that allows you to backup all digital fortune on durable water resistant pages.
the stone book has room for over 50 crypto wallet backups with water and tear resistant pages all while safely keeping your information 100 offline from hackers shield folio also
offers a ghost pin which is a permanent water spill resistant marker with low visibility ink that makes it difficult for anyone to see your writing. A built-in UV light shows hidden text clearly, ensuring total privacy and security against someone who is trying to steal your crypto.
I think this is a very cool crypto product and it would make a nice gift for anyone involved in crypto or looking to get into crypto. One more security product worth mentioning allows you to store your private keys offline.
CRYPTO STEEL CAPSULE
Introducing the crypto steel capsule solo by ledger that provides a solid steel encasement to protect your 24 word recovery phrase. As the only backup of your crypto assets, the crypto steel capsule solo has been designed to endure extreme conditions and preserve your recovery phrase. You can now keep your recovery phrase safe with this solid steel encasement. It adds an extra layer of security by protecting your backup and experience ultimate resilience.
it’s pretty sweet looking and the average person and even the advanced crypto person would probably not recognize that
This is where someone is keeping their private key.
