BOHH Breakdown Part 21: How to Better Protect your Cryptocurrency Investments

In our last post, we addressed how to support digital innovations without sacrificing security. Today, we are talking about the hot topic of cryptocurrency and how to better protect your investments.

Many of the major cryptocurrency exchanges have seen a major drop in price over the last few days. Bitcoin, one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges is reported to have had a major downfall from its highest value of almost $20,000 to now trading below $7,500 as of Monday according to an article from Ars Technica. 

Does this mean we are headed for the burst of the cryptocurrency bubble? Only time will tell if this will be the start of the end or if this is just a natural dip in the market adjusting to mainstream adoption. One thing is for sure though, with over 1,000 cryptocurrencies on the market and many celebrities jumping in on the cryptocurrency craze, there are still many people excited to jump on the cryptocurrency bandwagon.

Because cyber criminals are starting to capitalize on the money being put in to cryptocurrency trading, it’s important for users to know proper security measures to take to help keep their cryptocurrency wallets more protected. Below are several tips people should think about when they are investing in cryptocurrencies.

• Use Multi-factor authentication: this will add extra security layers for hackers to get through while trying to empty your wallet.
• Don’t store all your passwords in the same place: make sure to have your wallets and passwords stored in different places so both are not compromised in a hack.
• Use different passwords: don’t use a password that you have used before and make sure the password you choose is unique. Here is a past blog we have featured on the do’s and don’ts of picking a good password.
• Don’t save your passwords on your phone or computers. 
• Think about where you are transacting from. For example, by using public Wi-Fi, it makes you more vulnerable for someone to intercept your data in a man-in-the-middle attack. It is advisable to use your own Wi-Fi network that is setup with password protection to your cryptocurrency trading.
• Be careful of what you post on social media. This may sound silly, but by posting personal information about yourself and the cryptocurrency exchanges you are using on your social tools can give criminals easy access to find more information about you and use it to their advantage.
• Have a dedicated email for each of your cryptocurrency exchange. Never use the same one for different exchanges.
• Spread your cryptocurrencies among several wallets, so if one gets hacked, not all of them are compromised.

While these are not full-proof plans to ensure your cryptocurrency exchanges are not hacked, it does help add more layers of protection. Hopefully these tips offer some insight in security measures to take before investing in cryptocurrency exchanges. 

Come back next week and we will continue focusing on the cryptocurrency topic and look specifically at one type of attack – cryptojacking and how to protect against it.