How to Keep Your Crypto Assets Safe in 2021

Avoid Fake Crypto Platforms

With the increasing popularity of cryptocurrency, it is also attracting unsolicited attention. As now there are more people ready to invest in digital currency, fraudsters have found this to be an opportunity to sneak out money from investors in many ways, including creating fake cryptocurrency exchange platforms. They may pose as fake brokers on a forged trading portal with altered trade exchange, asking you to pay a hefty fee initially and promising great returns.

You might also receive promotional calls or emails from the scammers who will provide you a link that will direct you to a fake website appearing to be a registration page for the Crypto exchange platform of a legit company. Through this, they capture your credentials which they can use to hack your system or gain remote control. They will encourage you to invest larger sums until all your coins are gone. Or they may ask you to buy a cryptocurrency and store it in your wallet on that site. Once the wallet has a large number of cryptocurrencies, they will block you. They get access to all those coins. It is mostly how these scams go.

You need to think twice before investing in any cryptocurrency trading platform as many might not be real though may resemble one.

• Make sure the exchange app or website you are using is SOC certified or is a reputed one. Check the news and history about the site.
• Check the official site of the trading and investment company from whom you wish to buy the coins. Prefer companies that are FCA authorized.
• Do not reveal your passwords even to the support agent of the exchange app.
• When you open an exchange website, check the link, if it is secure. There will be a small lock symbol.

Stay Away from Fake Investment Schemes

As the cryptocurrency network keeps evolving from the past weakly structured system to a more stabilized one, the scams are also getting advanced. This brings into light new vulnerabilities that the developers need to work on. But given the nature of the scams, investors also need to have awareness and be careful about where they put their hard-earned money. Other than developing fake exchange platforms there are some fake investment schemes to avoid.

Ponzi schemes: New cryptocurrencies keep emerging in the market frequently. Sometimes a fake cryptocurrency or altcoins are promoted by offering them at a much lower value than the already established ones and traditional investments and promoting higher returns. Many investors fall for the low value and end up buying them.

ICO scams: Many budding start-ups come up the ICOs to raise funding for their projects. Through ICO, they offer free tokens to investors. They attract investors as they are offered at a much lower price than the highly valued Bitcoins and Ethereum. The returns after selling them may be high. But these are high-risk investments as either the project may fail or not enough funds raised weren't enough. But most of the time, the companies are fake and so are the ICOs.

Giveaways: They may entice you with fake giveaways or give you tips on making a lot of money by investing in cryptocurrency. They will promote it aggressively through mails or celebrity endorsements to make it believable. Avoid taking these scam calls or giving into the 'get rich quick scheme. The offers which are too good to be true are usually fake.

Always Use Cold Wallets and Trustworthy Exchanges

Cryptocurrency in itself is a volatile currency in a network that is sparsely regulated. They might be secure in the sense that the transactions can be achieved without revealing true identity but your investments are at stake. So, you should thoroughly check the websites, and use only reliable Exchange platforms for cryptocurrency trading such as Redot. Despite the alertness, even the popular ones like Binance feel pray to the scammers who took away $40 million from the investors in the same platform.

Another one happened with My Big Coin, where the con artists collected $6 million from investors to invest in a bogus cryptocurrency but disappeared with the money.

The best way to protect all your cryptocurrencies is by storing them in a hardware wallet or cold wallet. These wallets can store all your digital currency safely in an offline mode in your hardware system. There are a few advantages of that.

• Hackers cannot reach them since it is offline.
• Malware and viruses cannot attack them.
• You can store Bitcoins, Ethereum, Tether, chainlink, Polkadot, and a hundred others, all together in a single wallet.
• There is extra security with two-factor authentication, PIN, and private keys to which only you have access.
• No transactions will be possible without being verified from the wallet.
• They can develop a seed that enables them to restore the keys and reclaim the funds.

Some well-preferred cold wallets are Exodus, Ledger Nano, Trezor, Electrum, and so on.

Install an Antivirus, Firewall, and VPN

Like for any other software or digital product, you can protect cryptocurrencies with the same principles. That is by using antivirus, firewalls, or using a VPN connection while opening unknown links.

Installing Antivirus

The recently upgraded antivirus software has an extra shield to protect your data like wallet passwords and other real-time security features. Many brands in this industry already have solutions for securing the crypto assets and you can check a few of them here.

Why VPN?

While you surf the internet, there is a possibility of a data breach exposing information about your wallet, resulting in disappearing coins from your wallet. You can avoid using VPN as they form an encrypted tunnel around your data while passing it through a private network. It is impossible for hackers to break the encryption.

Putting up Firewall

It may not exactly protect your cryptocurrency but, the good old Firewall is proficient in blocking malware attacks. The Web Application Firewall (WAF) is even more advanced than the basic version. It acts as a safety gate whenever you visit a website using your usual network, unlike VPN. WAF technology can identify potential online threats that could jeopardize all of your online cryptocurrency funds.

Having a combination of these security features will ensure maximum protection throughout your trading period.

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