Topic: Crypto Security - Additional Protection For Your Seed/Private Keys. - page 2. (Read 539 times)

Encryption for private key or mnemonic seed first, then back them up with different methods: paper, metal tiles, password softwares like Keepass.

After encryption, and backup steps, the next step will be having good storage locations (some backups are stored at some locations - all need to be safe ones).

The last step will be a trial of recovery from those backups. To avoid mistakes during backup steps, try to use backups to test and see how correct they are before actually sending your money to those wallets.
Excellent point. It is why I never use common questions from device setups or from account registrations because I fear of free disclosures of my common facts in my life, that can be used to steal my money.

There are customer services that can help us to recover our accounts, or on the forum, a signed message, common questions are non-sense and risky.

another security point that is usually overlooked when creating a backup is "encryption".

the private key or mnemonic needs to be encrypted before it is written on whatever medium you choose (paper, metal,...) because if anybody could ever take a look at that backup they can easily write it down and then later on use it to steal all the funds that are stored in those keys. a simple encryption prevents that although it introduces a new issue: "how to remember/store the password used to encrypt it"!

To be fair Jameson put all of them through double the amount of heat than they were originally advertised for... A house fire won't reach temperatures of 2500 F which he used as the control variable in all the test, It's like applying a force of 40 Tons to something which is advertised to only sustain a force of 20 tons. Solutions like of Bitkee survived these extreme scenarios, he gave an A to them so they work in the real world if you ask me. What I don't get is the pricing of these metal tiles... I don't know who they are targetting at that price range. If its people who own less than 1 BTC in total, they won't be investing in this as the price doesn't make any sense and if it's for people who own more than 10 BTC then there are far better ways to store than these cheap metal tiles...

Be careful several of them don't resist at all to fire or to shock... 







https://blog.lopp.net/metal-bitcoin-seed-storage-stress-test/
https://blog.lopp.net/metal-bitcoin-seed-storage-stress-test--part-ii-/
https://blog.lopp.net/metal-bitcoin-seed-storage-stress-test-round-iii/

This is so much helpful. The first thing I read about hardware wallets was that they are the safest  wallet. Both hardware wallet and paper wallet are the safest. Like you said, hardware wallet will be better to use because paper wallet can deteriorate over time. Hardware wallets are safe but it has to also be protected by the owner.
It generates private key offline and also have a recovery phrase. These supposed to be protected and duplicated or triplicated by the owner. It can be used with desktop wallet. So, it is very important to free the computer from Trojan, virus and any type of malware that can change addresses that you paste or input while performimg transaction.
It is better to spend to protect your coins from these malwares by gerring the most powerful antivirus and also very imoortant to read news daily to discover new methods hackers can get through to your coins. Like recently, a trojan was detected to access google factor authentication and reveal the code to hackers.

Have you ever wondered what is one of the weak points when it comes to safe keeping of your cryptocurrency, even though you own your private keys? The point is, the vast majority do not properly store them, and they only realize it when it is too late. I'm not going to talk about ways to protect your wallet online, because the point of crypto is to be your own bank.

Let's focus on desktop and hardware wallets as the two most common ways of handling/storing cryptocurrency.

Desktop wallets are free, functional, in most cases and very easy to use. But they also have a downside, which is that they are vulnerable to various attacks, most often phishing (fake wallets), clipboard malware (address changing), the possibility of loss of funds due to hard disk failure (in the absence of backups).

Hardware wallets with their security solutions go beyond of some above issues, because they store private keys inside the device itself, they give us the ability to double authenticate the address, and they are not affected by possible operating system infection or hard disk failure.

Yet both have one if we can call it weakness, and it's a 12 or 24 word backup (seed) which allows us to retrieve all relevant information at any time, if something goes wrong. Keeping this information is crucial, and many have proven to be very careless about it.

What I would say first is the fact that a one backup often does not mean security, and that we should have at least two backups, preferably in two different locations. Another question is what to use as a backup, and most will still choose paper because it is the most affordable and inexpensive way to store information. Although I use it myself, over time I started to think that it was not a smart solution because the paper is impervious to fire, water, decays over time if not stored properly.

I think we still need to reach for some better materials, such as metal tiles, but however, as far as I can see the prices of such solutions are not very small (in range of hardware wallets). For those who are a little skillful with their hands, it may be easier to do something out of housework. Remember that investing in security is never a waste of money, especially when it comes to something as sensitive as cryptocurrency.

A few examples of what is currently offered on the market :

https://cryptosteel.com/
https://cryptotag.io/
https://hodlinox.com/
https://billfodl.com/
https://www.blockplate.com/
https://coldti.com/