Digital assets have become one of the prime targets for attackers. Malicious actors have found sophisticated ways to target users transacting in cryptocurrencies. It is therefore essential to implement the best security measures to protect your cryptocurrency funds. In this article, we look at some of the important security measures that users’ can deploy to safeguard their funds against bad actors.
Important Crypto Security Measures
Keep their Account Secure
An investor’s top priority should be to keep their account secure. o ensure the user account is secure, the first step is to choose a solid password. The password should not contain any details from personal information. Moreover, they should be unique, long, and contain special characters. To be on the safe side, investors should change their passwords frequently (password rotation).
In addition, repeating a password that has been used in another account jeopardizes the safety of the assets and account. Instead, using different passwords for different wallets is encouraged. Additionally, opting for multi-factor authentication (MFA) or two-factor authentication (2FA) offers additional security. It helps to ensure that no one else can log into the account except the owner.
Select a Secure Exchange
With hundreds of crypto exchanges available, choosing a secure and reliable exchange can be a hassle for beginners.
Some of the aspects to analyze before choosing an exchange includes researching its services, checking its Trust score, and more importantly looking at their security measures.
Secure and trustworthy exchanges take maximum security measures with 2FA or MFA, offline air-gapped devices, and SSL/TLS encryption. This way, they can trade or invest without worrying about the security of their funds.
Does the exchange abide by the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) protocols? What about the Know-Your-Customer (KYC) regulations? These exchanges enable the buying, holding, and selling of digital assets. Users should therefore do their homework, seek advice from experts, and study reviews. Additionally, a high level of regulation makes exchanges more secure and friendly. However, choosing a custodian exchange means that investors have no control over their assets. Instead, the centralized exchanges take control. Therefore, extensive research about the exchanges is essential before investing.
Keep their Crypto Secure
Now that an investor’s account and exchange are reliable and secure, should they have to worry anymore? Yes. Those are just the preliminary steps. Next, the investor has to ensure that their cryptocurrency is secure. Investors can opt to hold their digital assets in crypto wallets. While they can still leave them in their platform accounts and delegate security, wallets give them complete control over their funds. The choice depends on the preference of the investor.
Cold wallets (or hardware wallets) do not need an internet connection. This makes them less prone to hackers. At the same time, hot wallets give more accessibility and an easy user interface to traders.
Only Invest in Credible and Audited Projects
Traders or investors can’t hold their cryptocurrencies forever, can they? A trader joins the market to earn profits from trading. Thus, he will be compelled to diversify his portfolio, invest in start-ups, and buy/sell. With over 14,000 cryptos, 424 crypto platforms, and countless DeFi projects out there, finding the right asset and project becomes overwhelming.
Before investing in crypto assets, providing funds for liquidity pools (LPs), or staking pools, investors need to check audit reports for the DeFi projects. The only sure measure of “not pulling the rug” is to invest incredible and audited projects. However, an audit isn’t a complete guarantee that the project is viable, but it increases the chances of investment safety. The auditors analyze the project’s code to look for bugs that hackers can exploit, exploitable scripts, and security risks the code poses to the project. Moreover, an audit report is given with future recommendations. The final auditing report contains the changes made to the code for complete transparency. Hence, investors are often advised to read the auditing report to avoid a similar rug pull experienced in SQUID coin.
Be on the Lookout for Scams
The success of the crypto industry has also attracted the attention of scammers. Several projects and individuals are out to take advantage of investors’ naivety and steal their capital. Unfortunately, there is no way of retracing or recovering cryptocurrencies once stolen. Thus, investors should be on the lookout for phishing attacks, clipping, crypto-jacking, crypto dusting, blackmail, fake exchanges, impersonation, and pyramid schemes.
A good security measure is keeping the user’s internet secure. Users should avoid public networks. Moreover, investors can use a VPN as an additional layer of security to mask their IP addresses. In addition, they should always keep their devices secure with up-to-date anti-viruses and firewall security. Finally, during transactions, users need to avoid suspicious links to evade phishing scams.
Bottom-line
As the cryptocurrency ecosystem continues to evolve, it becomes the users’ sole responsibility to ensure the security of their assets. Thus, they need to secure their crypto accounts by considering vital security considerations detailed above. Moreover, their security should be up-to-date by learning new prevention strategies – i.e., attack techniques and watching for security news.
