Post
Topic
Board Beginners & Help
Re: [General] Bitcoin Wallets - Which, what, why?
by
kobita333
on 26/07/2019, 16:14:32 UTC
Hi. I would just like to know if you have heard of cases where people's money have been stolen from their wallet. If so how can you avoid this?
The only way to steal money is if they compromise the target machine/network. To avoid this you need to look into general security advice for computers and network. Read this thread: Beware of Malware: Think Before Acting!. What you could do is:
1) Keep the majority of your coins on an offline machine and only boot it when you need to use them.
2) Split the coins across several different devices (e.g. desktop wallet, mobile wallets) and make sure to use 2FA and encryption where available.

Another way to keep your coins from being stolen is to use a cold storage wallet.  While they are not a convenient solution for spending bitcoins, they are a great way to keep your coins safe.  With the cold storage keys being generated offline, there is no way for a hacker to get said keys.  But when you want to spend the coins on the cold wallet, you have to upload all the coins in the address as the private key is now possibly compromised.

If you want to save coins for the long term, a cold storage wallet is definitely the solution to go with.
Few days ago a youtuber upload a screen record video from her laptop. In that screen he kept his private key. Some of his viewers zoomed and got the key, for this that youtuber lost about $15000 .
So please don't get know anyone about your private key.