Best way how to prevent BTC wallet from hackers

Bernard Lerring

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Quote from: Jamie_Boulder on October 20, 2014, 08:07:44 AM

Quote from: ArticMine on October 20, 2014, 07:59:51 AM

Replace Microsoft Windows with GNU/Linux.

I recommend Tails, then make sure to dedicate the sole purpose of that machine to your wallet and NOTHING else.

Tails is excellent. It does all connections through Tor unless you click on the clearnet browser (correct me if I'm wrong) and great for accessing an electrum wallet using just your seed written down on paper. It even wipes your RAM on shutdown so that no trace of your transactions can be recovered. Every time you boot it starts from scratch (no wallet.dat file or any history left lurking) and doesn't touch your hard disk unless you tell it to through the file manager. It has everything you need for a quick online transmission to the Blockchain and then reboot without a trace.

It gets updated regularly (about once a month) to ensure any security flaws are dealt with and there's a BTC donation address on their home page. If you have a spare $20 worth of BTC to donate I'd recommend you sent them some BTC to keep this gem of an OS going. I've donated in the past and will do again.

It's a little bit slow booting from USB but worth it. Better still, install it on a lockable SD card and flick the switch to 'lock' mode so that you're doubly sure that nothing is altered. Then when a new version comes out unlock your SD and install it before locking it again. Sweet!

ranochigo

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Quote from: TrianglePythagoras on November 20, 2014, 11:48:49 AM

Quote from: dothebeats on November 17, 2014, 09:56:52 AM

Quote from: guitarplinker on November 15, 2014, 12:21:46 PM

You could look into buying a Trezor. Very secure wallets but they're a little pricey. ($120 IIRC)

What is a Trezor? I've been seeing posts about it lately but I don't know what it is. Is it a kind of an electronic gadget or something? I also saw a post earlier about this Trezor keychains? Correct me if I'm wrong but are they being used as a keychain also? If so, then it's an interesting item! Cheesy

Paper wallets are a poor mans trezor, I recommend buying a trezor.

Trezor wallets are overkill for people storing 1-10BTC. A trezor cost $119 while a paper wallet cost a few cents yet providing excellent security. If someone wants put 10BTC in a trezor, the person would have to invest ~33% of their BTC just to secure their coins. If they use a paper wallet, it would be less than 0.1% of their 1BTC. They just need a offline wallet and a open sourced wallet generator. No hackers can get your private key if you create the paper wallet on a fresh offline Linux USB drive. To prevent people with physical access to steal your BTC, encrypt the wallet with BIP38 encryption with a strong password. A paper wallet can also be water resistance if you laminate it and make a couple more copies and place them in different geographical locations to prevent fire damage too.

TrianglePythagoras

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Quote from: dothebeats on November 17, 2014, 09:56:52 AM

Quote from: guitarplinker on November 15, 2014, 12:21:46 PM

You could look into buying a Trezor. Very secure wallets but they're a little pricey. ($120 IIRC)

What is a Trezor? I've been seeing posts about it lately but I don't know what it is. Is it a kind of an electronic gadget or something? I also saw a post earlier about this Trezor keychains? Correct me if I'm wrong but are they being used as a keychain also? If so, then it's an interesting item! Cheesy

Paper wallets are a poor mans trezor, I recommend buying a trezor.

cheekychap

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Quote from: dothebeats on November 17, 2014, 09:56:52 AM

Quote from: guitarplinker on November 15, 2014, 12:21:46 PM

You could look into buying a Trezor. Very secure wallets but they're a little pricey. ($120 IIRC)

What is a Trezor? I've been seeing posts about it lately but I don't know what it is. Is it a kind of an electronic gadget or something? I also saw a post earlier about this Trezor keychains? Correct me if I'm wrong but are they being used as a keychain also? If so, then it's an interesting item! Cheesy

Trezor is a Bitcoin Hardware wallet which offers great security to your funds in the wallet. Trezor and a paper wallet are the safest ways to prevent hackers to take away the funds.

dothebeats

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Quote from: guitarplinker on November 15, 2014, 12:21:46 PM

You could look into buying a Trezor. Very secure wallets but they're a little pricey. ($120 IIRC)

What is a Trezor? I've been seeing posts about it lately but I don't know what it is. Is it a kind of an electronic gadget or something? I also saw a post earlier about this Trezor keychains? Correct me if I'm wrong but are they being used as a keychain also? If so, then it's an interesting item! Cheesy

dothebeats

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To prevent hackers from stealing you precious coins, try putting the majority of it in a cold storage that isn't connected to the internet. A hard drive or a USB may help you in doing this. Also, try printing those in a paper wallet and have multiple copies of it. Laminate them and keep it in a nice and secure place that you could think of. That is the best and cheapest method in keeping your wallets safe and secure.

guitarplinker

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Quote from: Muhammed Zakir on November 15, 2014, 01:11:21 PM

Quote from: guitarplinker on November 15, 2014, 12:21:46 PM

You could look into buying a Trezor. Very secure wallets but they're a little pricey. ($120 IIRC)

OR buy BTChip. Its like trezor but the hardware protection is low and there is no screen but still it is very good and cheap.

~~MZ~~

Interesting, haven't heard of the BTChip before. I'll have to look into it, seems like a great alternative to the Trezor after a few looks at it.

TrianglePythagoras

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Paper wallets FTW!
cheapest method ever, always keep a laminated copy just in case.

Muhammed Zakir

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I prefer Zakir over Muhammed when mentioning me!

Quote from: guitarplinker on November 15, 2014, 12:21:46 PM

You could look into buying a Trezor. Very secure wallets but they're a little pricey. ($120 IIRC)

OR buy BTChip. Its like trezor but the hardware protection is low and there is no screen but still it is very good and cheap.

~~MZ~~

guitarplinker

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You could look into buying a Trezor. Very secure wallets but they're a little pricey. ($120 IIRC)

Muhammed Zakir

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I prefer Zakir over Muhammed when mentioning me!

Use Electrum. Install one in an offline computer and then write down the Master Public key and then install Electrum in an online computer and choose watch-only mode and enter the Master Public Key. If you want to send BTC, create a raw transaction and then use a qrcode generator and copy-paste the raw tx in it and generate a qr code and scan it with your mobile and copy-paste it and create a document. Now connect your mobile and copy-paste the raw tx to electrum and sign it. Then, copy-paste the signed raw tx to the document. Now you can copy-paste the raw tx and push it through online services like Blockchain.info, Eligius, webbtc.com or Btc.Blockr.io .

~~MZ~~

MCHouston

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Where am I?

Cold storage in a nice fireproof safe is the way to go.

cr1776

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Quote from: ?? on ??

You should use Desktop Wallets.It is safer than online wallets. Because it can store your Bitcoins on your computer’s hard drive instead of on the internet.

Bad advice. Look up cold storage here, if you have any significant number of coins, storing them on your computer or on the internet (e.g. "the cloud") is a bad idea.

DeAlquezar

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Cols storage or VirtualBox without access to the Internet is the best option in my opinion.

fdylstyx

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Thanks a lot guys, some vibes of trust coming my way from your contributions. Not really paranoid...just not
into catching a bad experience that would push me away from this.

I've got unlimited data usage for my Blackberry 10 (grandfathered) I was lucky I didn't make the original contract
a business designation but as a consumer. Apparently they've phased out free unlimited data on business phones.

So I'm curious, how many gigs would my phone require to be able to take advantage of doing all of this on my phone?
I trust it more than my windows. My phone uses a gmail address as they discontinued @blackberry.com when I upgraded.
I'm wondering if it's all doable using around 10-20 gigs (need some for daily use but I could probably get by allowing 20 gigs
dedicated for BTC usage) what would be a more secure email provider than gmail? I'm guessing there's something better
available for my needs.

Again, thanks for the info, I'll work on my due diligence before deciding which is best for me.

fdyl

4theLOVEofCrypto

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Cold storage that shit! Without a doubt

pooya87

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look into cold storage. i use Electrum so i will explain how to do so in electrum.
the official site: https://electrum.org/
offline transactions: https://electrum.org/tutorials.html#offline-mpk

basically you create the transaction on an offline, safe pc and then move it to an online pcto send out

phillipsjk

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Let the chips fall where they may.

Quote from: fdylstyx on November 07, 2014, 02:37:19 AM

Thanks for the helpful reply phillipsjk. I'd read about inscribing in 2 pieces of metal and stashing them in different locals and that does seem to be likely the safest way. I don't intend on purchasing bitcoin until I know how best to protect them.

The advantage of paper is that it is cheap and fast. You would only want to only inscribe Hierarchical Deterministic wallet seeds on metal.

Quote

I'm inclined to use my BlackBerry to purchase locally but I feel that's just as bad as using my computer. I'm ready to pull the trigger and start accumulating but the more I read the more I'm confused about how not to get scammed between transacting with a temporary wallet to my paper or metal wallet.

A trusted link or two on how to best go about this would be greatly appreciated. I live in Canada and prefer to achieve anonymity, as far acquiring and holding is concerned.

Thanks in advance,

fdyl

You can send directly to the metal or paper; no need to temporarily store it somewhere else. The hard part would be transcribing the Bitcoin address and then generating a QR code (if needed).

If you have a relatively modern machine, Bitcoin Armory should be good. It supports "watch only" wallets, as well as multi-signature addresses. It relies on Bitcoin core to interact with the network.

Bitcoin.org has a very good Choose your Bitcoin wallet page.

Rampton

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Everyday I see at least one person complaining of losing their money. To be 100% safe I'd recommend booting from a live linux cd or usb everytime you want to use your coins. I'd say the vast majority of coins stolen are taken from windows computers after they've had a keylogger or some other virus installed.

fdylstyx

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Quote from: phillipsjk on November 07, 2014, 01:48:57 AM

Quote from: fdylstyx on November 07, 2014, 01:12:34 AM

Quote from: LiberyOrDeath on November 06, 2014, 01:28:26 AM

Well if your that paranoid use the paper wallet or brain wallet.

I searched the term brain wallet and all I got was this from LibertyOrDeath. Can someone explain how I can create one,
or several?

I expect a self coded encrypted personal phrase that only a head injury or dementia could erase is the
point?

If a little knowledge is dangerous, then even less is reason enough for paranoia.

Brian wallets are very risky because people hopelessly underestimate the entropy of their pass-phrase.

The most secure way to store Bitcoins is with paper wallets (or something longer lasting like nickel or stainless steel) generated off-line. You should either make two copies and store them in separate locations, or create a multi-signature script/transaction such you need m of n pieces to authorize the transaction (and store those in n locations).

I saw a comment up-thread the some measures such as this may be considered over-kill. Last year around this time the price of Bitcoin went up 1000% in a month or so. If the price of Bitcoin spikes to something like $400,000 per coin, suddenly "use an anti-virus" is going to start looking seriously inadequate for protecting your 5mBTC (now worth $2000).

Bitcoin is game-changing in that it now makes previously impractical attacks profitable. I believe it is only a matter of time before a major software vendor pushes a wallet stealer in a software update. The only way to keep your Bitcoin savings safe is to keep them away from your network-connected machine in the first place.

Thanks for the helpful reply phillipsjk. I'd read about inscribing in 2 pieces of metal and stashing them in different locals and that does seem to be likely the safest way. I don't intend on purchasing bitcoin until I know how best to protect them.

I'm inclined to use my BlackBerry to purchase locally but I feel that's just as bad as using my computer. I'm ready to pull the trigger and start accumulating but the more I read the more I'm confused about how not to get scammed between transacting with a temporary wallet to my paper or metal wallet.

A trusted link or two on how to best go about this would be greatly appreciated. I live in Canada and prefer to achieve anonymity, as far acquiring and holding is concerned.

Thanks in advance,

fdyl

Topic: Best way how to prevent BTC wallet from hackers (Read 4749 times)