Secure Safekeeping of Digital Assets such as crypto's

in digital •  7 years ago 

Thoughts on keeping digital assets safe:

As the value of decentralized digital assets grow it will become even more important to protect them from hackers who will obviously use increasingly more sophisticated tools as the reward increases. By now most understand that YOU ARE responsible to keep you private keys, passwords, seeds and the rest in a secure, recoverable and unhackable place. Cold (for instance paper wallet kept in a safe....) is MUCH SAFER than hot (connected to the internet or on a cloud server), but here are a few additional steps which seldom get mentionned and make it easier and safer:

  1. Do all of the above except "do not ever reveal your private key to anybody". From birth to death we have a chance of dying. Make sure that what you own, digital or not, can be enjoyed by someone if you depart. No kidding....think about how you want to handle it but wether you are 14 or 90.... have a few 100's or MM's, make sure someone knows about it and how to get it.

  2. In general do not keep any private keys on your computer. Paper wallets are great for long term safe storage in a bank safe or other but if you need access on a regular basis to your assets keep your private keys on a USB or USB's.

TWO USB at least

One regular USB with your paper wallet in the safe place. Maybe two sets in two different safe places.

ONE ENCRYPTED USB with your keys to carry with you or have somewhere close for daily use. ENCRYPT IT with software like Veracrypt or Window's Bitlocker. A good simple option is also DataTraveler Locker from Kingston Technology which is encrypted and deactivates all information stored after 10 wrong password trials. Let's call it the travelling kit. If you loose it you will be safe.

Make sure you either physically crush the old unencrypted USB or delete digital files from it or your computer with softwares such as Secure Erazure.

No expertise here from me just thoughts which I think can help.

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