As the price of Bitcoin surges, there have been constant reminders, especially on Reddit, for its new users to be cautious and not to keep their portion of the currency on exchanges.
The call is to ward off any security challenge that may arise as hackers seek ways to access and steal Bitcoins from wallets knowing that there would be an increase in the number of users and new users onboard.
Secure your accounts and devices
Relying on SMS codes for high-risk accounts such as email, bank and exchanges could be tricky considering how it’s been at play going by claims of social engineer attacks that have increased of late.
Some cases in question include attacks on Bo Shen’s ETH and REP accounts and Ethereum forum. They confirmed that cell phone accounts can be stolen for codes to be sent to the intruders.
The question now is: what is the best way to secure your device? That is if you don’t have or want a hardware wallet.
From Google Authenticator to two-factor authentication 2FA, questions arise on the best way to keep your wallet safe from intruders who are bent on gaining access to your wallet and wiping them clean. Mln of dollars have been stolen in Bitcoin using the account owners’ phone numbers.
On Reddit, there are suggestions that cheap phones with no tie to one’s IRL identity could be more secure if the use of SMS would be required. Others say getting and enrolling two Yubikeys will do the trick.
Backup codes and paper wallets
You can also go for what we have heard and known for some time: store your backup codes in a safe place. Or go for a paper wallet which has both the public key and private keys.
Core Developer at Augur, Jack Peterson, offers a piece of advice:
“I think the most important thing is to make sure your email password can't be bypassed with your phone. For example, if you use Gmail, make sure your account does not have a recovery phone number! Other than this, I usually just point people towards Kraken's now-classic blog post.”
Business development for BTC.com, Alejandro de la Torre recommends using a known third party 2FA tool such as authy instead of 2FA using SMS, a feature some Bitcoin wallets including BTC.com now have.