Nobody can deny that bitcoin holds the throne as the most powerful cryptocurrency in existence. There’s been a steady rise in its usage, and it’s hardly a surprise that more and more mainstream businesses are adopting it as payment method.
Only last year, more than two million bitcoin wallets were known to be stored at blockchain. Nobody knows for certain how many wallets are stored offline – on memory sticks, printed as QR Codes or even sealed in the Swiss Bank vaults.
The value of bitcoins on the market varies. While at one point, a bitcoin could go up to $1000, these days it’s around $240.
With bitcoin rising in popularity, it’s become more tempting for hackers to try and steal it.
Now, let’s see some of the ways hackers use to steal bitcoin wallets.
• First of all, there is phishing. It’s the most commonly used attack; its main purpose is to steal your wallet and bitcoins. How does it work?
Basically, a hacker will send you a malicious link and the moment you click on the link – your IP address is recorded. If a hacker wants to steal you bitcoin wallet, the link will usually take you to a fake page of your wallet and prompt you to enter the required info. The information about your wallet is sent directly to the hacker.
• Keylogging is another popular and possibly the easiest way of stealing BTC wallets. Basically, keylogger is a simple code that, once injected to your computer, captures all keyboard strokes and forwards the records directly to the hacker. The hacker learns your passwords, credit card numbers, etc.
• Cookie hijacking is basically a process of exploiting a valid computer session to gain unauthorized access to information on the target computer.
How to protect your BTC wallet?
• One of the ways is to use a proxy that will protect your data as it journeys through the internet. Best proxy server will hide your IP address, which will reduce the chance for you to fall victim of phishing.
Best proxy servers represent an intermediary between you and the whole internet. Your information goes out to the internet through their servers, and the response is returned to you. The best proxy servers allow you the maximum protection, and faster connections. VPN is basically a more advanced proxy server.
They offer proxies from hundreds of countries and thousands of available IP addresses. The most common uses of best proxy servers pertain to circumventing firewalls and concealing your Tor browser usage, but they have many other uses as well.
There are ways, however, to track your IP address; but it is certainly much more anonymous than going online “naked” using your real IP address.
So, use Tor browser in combo with the best proxy server that suits your needs to give your attacker a bit of work to do! If he is not skillful enough, chances are he’ll give up on you and look for an easier target.
• Another good idea is to use a genuine operating system and update it on a regular basis for security updates and bug fixes. This is just the first step in your security plan, yet it’s basic and will provide some protection to your bitcoin wallet.
• Also, it is wise to use desktop-qt bitcoin wallet instead of online wallets. Many of the online wallet providers have had certain security breaches and to this day haven’t been able to secure adequate security to users’ wallets.
On the other hand, using the desktop-qt wallet guarantees that you are the sole keeper of the private key of your coins.
• A valid piece of advice is to avoid logging to suspicious websites, and, as explained above, never follow suspicious links. Not even the best proxy server could save you from phishing if you click on a malicious link. If you run into such link, use “Website Phishing Check” service.
• Another crucial way to protect your wallet is cold storage, or offline wallet. The most secure place to store your bitcoins and bitcoin savings is cold storage with no access to network.
• Last and most important way of protecting your bitcoin wallet is backup. This is certainly a must. An encrypted wallet backup allows you to restore your bitcoins even if your computer is stolen, so it’s worth the trouble.
If you opt to follow all of these steps – good for you. You may feel some of them are insignificant; in that case, be sure to at least take the advantage of the protection that the best proxy server and backup provide.
Click HERE to find the best proxy server.