Topic: how i can protect offline wallet ? - page 3. (Read 611 times)

This is probably about misinterpreting what an online wallet is and what is an offline wallet. OP is very likely thinking of desktop, mobile or hardware wallet which in this case can be very easy hacked by asking the victim to send his/her private key/seed for some reason or to download a fake wallet.

The story can go something like this :

- Hacker: I found some vulnerability in Electrum, you may lose your coins if you do not update to a new version.
- Victim: What should I do now?
- Hacker: You need to download a new wallet from this link: electrum.xxx or send me your seed to check it.

Depending on how naive one is, in some cases, a hacker will manage to trick a few people with this story. Not so long time ago someone is posting some seed checker tool for Ledger HW on Reddit, and some users lost their coins by typing their seeds in that tool, how stupid that can be...

Probably something like that happened. People often don't even pay attention where and what they click and later they are surprised when something happens. Awareness of security needs is extremly low.  Education of people about security and potential issues in virtual space is a must.

Okay I cannot stress this out

Never install any app from sources you have no idea about , don't click on suspicious links , don't connect your mobile to Bluetooth of person you have no idea about , don't let anyone play with TeamViewer on your mobile.

These are like the basic things that you ought to do to protect the privacy of your mobile and everything alike.

Did he click any suspicious links? Any suspicious emails or messages? I am also wondering if that happened while he was chatting or it might be happening for a while now and you just noticed today? I don't really know what happens but one thing is for sure, you need to secure not only your wallet but also your PC as well.

How did this happen? Just by chatting your friend has lost a coin?

Maybe he gave her his password or his private key. Because this is the only possible reason why he lost his coin.
You must provide enough explanations to give you enough solution.

For me, the simple and easy way to protect your offline wallet is through saving its private key or passphrase then the put the offline wallet in a safe place. I think it's hard to restore his coins and no one knows who gets those coins. Maybe, his chatmate tells that he will make your capital double once he sends his coins so basically, he may got scammed by his chatmate and for me, it is only the reason why he lose his coins.

What?

How did this happen? That fast?

Offline wallets can be hacked but I don't think it happens that fast. If that really happened then I guess that is not in the time or the people he is chatting at that moment unless you are sharing valuable information about yourself or maybe about the wallet your friend are taking care of.

You should have posted the kind of wallet that your friend has. If it's an offline wallet then it might be a hard wallet. I wonder how did it happen. Facebook can't even access an offline wallet. Hard wallet cannot be hacked unless someone else robs it and knows its private keys. You should never entrust your wallets even your private keys with someone that you don't trust that much.

Even if you click offline links there is possibility that your wallet get robbed? I do not trust any of my friends seeing my wallet because even them can click that anonymous links that they get robbed. but mostly they are aware of this. I hope that everyone will know how exactly protect they're own wallet too not just me.

There might be two things being stolen when you use an offline wallet, your friend gives a private key to someone, or your computer has a virus. Giving someone a private key is the stupidest mistake made by a user. Private key is something that is very "private" and confidential. no one can know your private key including official third party. And the second is a virus or malware, I have experienced one of these things, I installed an application sent by my online friends, and it turns out that the application has malware that allows them to record all activities that you do in your computer, including recording passwords and private keys that you enter.
how to protect them is to install an antivirus and be careful of applications and suspicious links

I have never heard news like this before where your friend lost a coin in his wallet offline when he surfed with Facebook mesenger maybe your friend gives privacy to others and maybe your friend is not careful when storing his wallet coins and maybe when your friend is chatting Facebook Messenger appears to be chatting with the wrong person where that person can hack your friend's software.

Come on, this is kindergarden stuff.. It's kinda obvious you shouldn't share personal information with strangers, especially your online wallets? Telling somebody your Bitcoin account is as nonsense as telling somebody your credit card information..

Anonymously or not, links should always be verified before entered. It is more likely for your wallet to be penetrated by hackers or viruses than having your funds being stolen after telling somebody your private key or seed. By "offline" we usually refer to a Bitcoin wallet on a PC that's never connected to the Internet, but the OP apparently refers to something completely different.


If you have a PC that is not connected to the Internet, then you don't have much to worry about. Just take enough care when plugging in any USB stick because it could be infected.


If the PC your wallet is set up onto is Internet connected, then you must take precaution because fund loss isn't something unusual to happen and you could turn into just another victim of it. The best thing you can do is buying a hardware wallet if you are holding large sums. There are a few safe hw wallets around with different price tags based on which cryptocurrencies you are using. If you aren't holding large sums, then it probably isn't worth the costs to buy a hardware wallet but you should know you're always vulnerable and being a victim of keyloggers or cryptocurrency-stealing specific viruses could become a disaster for you.

A good option would be taking an older smartphone, resetting it and turning it into a cold storage. Most of us have an old phone lying around we haven't used in a very long time, and that could be turned into a way of storage not as safe as Trezor or Ledger, but surely safer than a wallet installed on a daily-driver PC.

I believe the OP meant the wallet was closed and their funds somehow vanished. As far as I know, you can grab the "wallet.dat" file from a specific directory on your computer, but that might be an outdated thing as the last time I backed up my ".dat" files was somewhere around 2014. If you can still grab the file and the wallet was not encrypted (if you encrypt the wallet, the ".dat" needs a password to be unlocked as far as I know), the OP's friend might've been a victim of hacking.


Although the hw wallets aren't very cheap though, I highly recommend using them. They give you the feeling of safety no other way of storing Bitcoin does.

I cannot think of ways how can an offline wallet be hacked or infiltrated by just chatting on online facebook messenger. As we all know offline wallet  are highly resistant to attacks and also the way you tell your story lacks details. I guess he is using a cold wallet and possibly he was a victim of hardware keyloggers. Another possibility is that somebody knew of all the details about his offline wallet and just snatch it away from him.

If this offline wallet were your friend lost his coins is suppose to be your cold wallet, then your friend was using it wrongly!
Maybe we need more info to give the necessary help has you have cut out the important details.

There are many ways to protect your offline wallet. The first thing you should do is to make it private and never share it to anyone; in this way, you will avoid to get robbed. Also, do not trust someone who anonymously sending you a link, it may be phishing.

First of all, please be more specific on how did he lose those Bitcoin.

As per my understanding there can be only two reason, either he has shared his privately accidentally or has send those Bitcoin accidentally on Facebook.

Never share the private key cause it is meant to be private and never talk about Bitcoin to strangers.

Follow the above rule and be safe.

maybe he keeps a private key on his social media so that when someone hacks his account the hacker also knows it (there is a similitude) if you want to protect your wallet you can use the nano ledger it's not easy to hack because it's physical, unless you carelessly eliminate it, even though it's expensive in my opinion it's worth the safety.

Your friend didn't just magically lost his offline wallet funds just by chatting on Facebook messenger. Chances are, your friend did something amateurish like handing over his wallet's private keys on to someone(may it be via a scam website, via chat, etc). His offline wallet is just as safe as how he secures his wallet's keys.

Wait, did your friend met with his friend from facebook messenger or what? You need to explain more details so we can know the whole of the story, and we can give suggestions on protecting the offline wallet.

But, the first thing that you should do to protect your offline wallet is never telling people who you don't trust, don't tell them that you have a crypto coin in your house. Keep it for yourself and your trust person so only you and he/she that will know. That is the basics way to protect the wallet, no matter if that is an offline wallet, wallet in your android phone, or wallet on your computer.

Offline wallets are based on private keys so the number one priority on keeping a offline wallet safe is securing your private key in a separate device/harddrive or even in written form. Pricate keys is the most precious thing we have so keep it safely! Lose your private key then you'ee done.