Crypto Trader Security: 4 Tips to Stay Away from Hackers

Crypto Trader Security: 4 Tips to Stay Away from Hackers

Understanding and trading bitcoins has become an illustrious line of career for a lot of people. The mother of all cryptocurrencies is not alone on these exchanges and trading platforms, though. With the freedom to trade in such digital currencies for real-world rewards is a testament to the advancement of our money culture.

However, the underlying operating system of cryptos means that extra care should be taken with these currencies. After all, they are largely untraceable in case anything bad happens.

That is why you should never allow anything bad to happen in the first place. In this piece, we detail some of the ways to ensure that never happens.

1 Secure your Trading Account

If they are not a part of your trading team or do not have business with your trading account, it is not healthy to share the password to your trading account with anyone at all.

Speaking of passwords, make sure you have chosen something as safe and secure as possible. The days of 8-character passwords are long gone, especially considering how easy they are to hack now. When choosing a password, also ensure that it does not contain any personally identifying information.

This is why we recommend trusting an online password generation tool with this process instead.

Inline with securing your trading account, ensure to enable two-factor authentication where possible. Finally, take advantage of other security management options on your preferred broker/ exchange.

2 Secure your Wallets

Your trading accounts are just one way to access your cryptos. You can also have your wallets be the point of entry into your holdings and funds.

Just like the account above, your password here should be as secure as possible. That password should never be shared with anyone either.

In line with that, get 2FA up and working on your wallets where possible. To prevent the chances of an online hack, it would make sense to go for hardware wallets. That is a very logical option if you hold a lot of bitcoin.

Whether you use hardware or software wallets, though, you should never disclose your private keys to anyone. Even if you had the most secure password and 2FA system set up, your private keys can allow a hacker to bypass all that and get into your account.

3 Install Security Software

There are a lot of ways to get access to your cryptocurrencies. One such way is by installing malware onto your device. This malware can either lock you out of your trading systems for a ransom (ransomware), record your keystrokes to determine your passwords (keyloggers), etc.

Having antivirus software handy will prevent all such issues from ever surfacing.

Your internet network is also important here. That is why we never advise trading/ accessing your wallets over public/ insecure Wi-Fi networks. A good way around this is to download a VPN.

What a VPN does is tunneling your internet traffic and data through the numerous servers that it has been developed with. That makes it impossible for hackers to snoop on your activity since your data is encrypted.

4 Never Sideload Apps

If you cannot get a trusted cryptocurrency wallet/ exchange/ service from your official app store, it will be better to look for alternatives.

The story of Eric Savics, the entrepreneur who lost $100,000+ of his cryptocurrency holdings to hackers, comes to mind here.

The only mistake he did was download a wallet extension that looked like the real deal, and supply his private keys. He thought he was accessing his account. In truth, though, he was giving the hacker tools to access the said account. This hacker did so, and they wiped out all of Eric’s life savings.

Final Words

Trading can be lucrative when done right, but hackers can steal all of your work in a minute if you do not secure your holdings better. With the tips above, you should be making life harder for anyone looking to breach your cryptocurrency accounts.

 

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