The price of bitcoins is on the rise in the market. This makes it an attractive option for hackers who are sitting online and looking for prey. You should never allow them to gain unauthorized access to the wallet. The bitcoin price is like a roller coaster. The price of it has been increased from USD 3000 to USD 10000 in a short period. With this surge, it makes an ideal investment option for many people. To avoid hackers from stealing bitcoin stored in the wallet, you must follow these tips.
Bitcoin Safeguard the wallet
The best way to protect the bitcoin wallet is to sign up and use a reliable online wallet. Many technical issues are easily handled by the online wallets such as private keys and their addresses. People who are new to the world of bitcoins and not tech-savvy can use online wallets. It takes just a few minutes to sign up into the online wallet and store bitcoins. All you need to have to gain access to the account is the valid credentials. However, you must be careful, since the phishing email sent may steal your username and password.
Use two-factor authentication
The online wallet allows you to set two-factor authentication for the account. You can link the account to the phone or a mobile app. If hackers try to use your username or password, they need to get the code generated as part of two-factor authentication.
Do not use the phone number for two-factor authentication
There is different two-factor authentication supported by the online bitcoin wallets. However, not all the two-factor authentication methods supported are reliable and secure. There are high chances for the hackers to take control over your phone and view the passcode sent to your phone number. If you are linking two-factor authentication to mobile, try using a different SIM.
Maintain separate wallets
You should not keep the savings and investment bitcoins at the same place. This avoids your saving from being vulnerable to hackers. There is no limit set for the number of bitcoins that a person must hold. You must set different bitcoin addresses for savings, spending, and receiving the amount.
Never keep the savings you have in the online wallet
The majority of the hacking cases have been registered by the victims who lost the amount from online wallets. Though online wallet is highly convenient to keep the money, it is not safe to store your savings. If you keep a little amount in the wallet and is hacked, the loss would be minimal. The bitcoins are not like credit cards; you cannot get a claim when fraud takes place. However, you can file a case, but getting the coins back would be less.
Safeguard your privacy
You should not share the private keys of the bitcoins with anyone. The wallet address would be in the size of the bank account number, and the private key would be in the size of PIN. By seeing the transaction history, you can know who is transferring to whom based on the bitcoin address. There is a lot of transparency maintained.
If you have two wallets, one is the spending wallet, and the other is the savings wallet, then it would send a clear signal to the hacker that you are transferring from one wallet to another based on the address. You should never share the private key with anyone, since knowing how many coins you are transferring would breach your privacy.
Cold storage
The bitcoins that are stored in the wallet and saved on the system is prone to attacks. The online wallet would save the bitcoins in the location that is easy for anyone to guess. Bitcoin users are reporting many such attacks. The best solution that is available for you to store the private key of the wallet in the offline. The offline could be a text file stored in the USB or a QR code on the paper.
In case, if you would like to transfer bitcoins from offline wallet to online wallet, you must scan the QR code or provide the private key in the blockchain network. When you view the balance in the wallet, you can initiate the bitcoin transactions between the accounts. You can also encrypt the private key of bitcoins.