Bitcoin Forum

Hey, i'm newbie in this industry and I've came across this article - https://fxpmarkets.blog/2017/08/29/crypto-thieves/ (https://fxpmarkets.blog/2017/08/29/crypto-thieves/)
Is it true ?
if so - what is the best way to protect our coins?

That article is talking about failed exchanges and exchanges where are undergoing problems. In this situation is easy to protect your bitcoin, just keep them in your wallet and don't keep them on an exchange. Choosing a desktop wallet is better than choosing a web wallet and choosing a hardware wallet is the best you can do to protect your coins.

I think the best way to protect your bitcoins is storing them in a hardware wallet.

If you don't have a hardware wallet, you can store your bitcoins in another type of cold wallet.

" 
So, how could YOU avoid Bitcoin hacks?

There are various reasons hackers find bitcoin wallets appealing targets. Unlike credit card payments, Bitcoin transactions are irreversible. The anonymous nature of Bitcoin also often makes proving theft difficult.

Tip #1 – Always backup your Bitcoin wallet while being offline.

Tip #2 – Don’t store Bitcoins on computers which are connected to the internet.

Tip #3 – Hackers regularly use keyloggers and ransomware tools such as CryptoLocker to target Bitcoin users. Update your anti-malware software regularly and monitor your applications for suspicious files.

Tip #4 – If you wish to gain from crypto-currency trading and not for spending use – we advise to trade on CFDs (contracts for difference) which allows you to trade the on crypto-currency prices without actually buy or store the cryptocurrency on your computer, which mean there is no chance for hacking or theft.

"

You can find everything you need on these links


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1914800.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1628282.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1741772.0

So your'e saying that if i keep my coins back'd up in a wallet i cant get hack'd ? 

Hardware wallets seem like the most convenient and safe option, but you can yet use paper wallets. Perhaps several of them in small chunks that you can use separately when you have to withdraw...

Having a back-up do only give the access in your wallet when you do need. Like private keys or wallet.dat file. You can import it anytime if you do have these things on a certain wallet and you can access it once again this is why we should not easily give these keys or letting show on public. On the link above its just a basic stealing or hacking of your coins on an exchange wallet. This is why when we are using web wallets we should always set 2fa and dont store huge amounts on those kind of wallets.

If you want to save for long term, make use of either hardware wallet, paper wallet or at least desktop wallets. They are safer rather than leaving your cash on exchange wallets. Also, if you are going to be using a desktop wallet, you will need to always keep your desktop safe or you can just save your seed or private key somewhere very safe, copy out your public address and uninstall the software if you know your system may be prone to malwares. With the public address, you can always push in funds from anywhere and access it with you seed anytime you need to withdraw. However, you need to be extracareful with both your seed or private key cause if it falls into the wrong hands, your funds are gone for life.

Keeping your coins backed up does not necessarily mean you cannot get hacked. Backing up is a way to have access back into your wallet just in case you misplace or forgot your access details. If you do not maintain proper security of your assets, even with your back up, you can still get hacked.
Even your back up alone (your seeds) if thrown anywhere or someone ends up having an access to it is enough for that person to have access to all your funds. So extra security is always needed when keeping your assets.

That's right. we all need to know that while we are holding our founds on an exchanger it is actually exchanger's founds, but not ours. So, in the case that if the exchanger decides to close it's activity or if the exchanger hacked we loose everything what we counted as our money and we can't do anything about that. Online wallets can be called the same type as exchangers and logically they are not safe. But Hardware and paper wallets can give you that protection that is really needed in the world when you are surrounded by scammers.

That is pretty sure the right thing to do when you are using a web wallet because it is link in the internet and hackers can surely manipulate it, bitcoin is surely secure but with the skills and level of knowledge this kind of people have they can surely manipulate anything in the world wide web and the only secure option you can do is with the private wallet with your own private key.

Thieves are roaming all around, with bitcoin the scammers, hackers and the trappers were the thieves in my opinion. Hackers try to hack the users account and steal out of it. Scammers just try to trap the newbies into some fraudulent investment schemes and will get their hard earnings.

Agreed with you, there are few examples wherein people have lost their bitcoins after the exchange filed bankruptcy (Mt.Gox) . Hackers are also able to steal the coins from the online wallets. So as per me only hardware wallets are safe at the moment in order to protect the coins from the thief.

Just follow the simple steps and you will be safe. Make adequate backups for your coins. Use 2FA to protect them against stealing. And always use a gmail account for the 2FA. Because it is difficult for the thieves to hack gmail accounts. And one more thing. Never store your coins in an exchange wallet.

There's plenty of exchanges these days and you never know which one is out to make a quick buck. Those thieves might just be "you know I know!". Like most suggested, hardware wallet is supposedly the safest way. Nano S Ledger and CryptoSteel seems pretty cool to me.

Not everything you see in the internet is true but not all times, the number one move for me to check it if it is true is to find it by yourself and never trust others opinion. But in this case it is just blog that full of hearsay and there is no concrete evidence that it is do-able by any chances. Bitcoin is secure if you do the safety measures to secure it then if not you will be scam in the long run.

Very true. I was a victim in the Cryptsy collapse almost two years ago. They defrauded most of their customers of their Bitcoins and altcoins and nothing has been recovered. Similar issues happened with MtGox and others as well.

The moral of the story is keep most of your Bitcoins and altcoins off of exchanges and preferably in offline wallets. Only put coins on an exchange for trading but keep the bulk of the coins in a safe location. Also watch the message boards for any red flags about exchanges.

Thank you guys, so from your comments i guess its much safer than i thought.

Private keys should really be kept on a private place on where no one anyone knows about that.If using web wallet then always put up 2fa identification because having this hackers wont really easily bruteforce it no matter what. Skill of them might be good but they have their own limit regarding on their capabilities and we should really think off that always.There are lots of safety measures for us to avoid such loss of our precious bitcoin.

Going for hardware wallet or paper wallet, or even desktop wallet. Go for high security for your wallet and remember not to show your wallet to anybody or even on the internet like Facebook, etc. And the most important thing that i've learnt, is do not trust anybody on the internet these days.

My opinion is the best way to protect your coins from hacker is to stored them to cold wallet and split it into several cold wallet to prevent if something bad happen to your cold wallet.

i think they use steal their phone number and try to login in victim's account and start to send all of the bitcoin into their account, i think its not system of bitcoin weakness, but the victim is the weakness and give her email, phone number into thieves so the thieves can stole the bitcoin easly

These Bitcoins thieves are known as hackers. Bitcoin hackers who targets weak Bitcoin wallet addresses. And sometimes, your Bitcoin wallet address provider itself is a thief. Which is why it is important to choose wisely the Bitcoin wallet address provider you will have. Because aside from it being the gate keeper of your Bitcoins, it is also the one that can give you earning from trading it directly to them. And also, they help you transact in different ways. Example is that my wallet allows me to pay electric bills by converting my Bitcoins to peso for a certain rate.

Find a wallet whoch you have 100% control over your keys and secure it and that will be enough to secure your bitcoins. Remember, don't store your back up in your computer or other devices. For me, I prefer righting those in a piece of paper with atleast more than 2 copies and place it in a secure place.

Every valuable thing attract thieves. In order to protect your coin, you should:
- Secure your computer.
- Keep your private keys safe and never give them to anyone.
- Verify your transactions, they are not refundable.
- Do not deal with anyone or any website not trust worthy.

The article describes how a thief can possible hack accounts in a trading platform. And yes, its really possible for someone to steal you money in an exchange that's why its not safe to put all your funds in their. The best thing to do is not really put all your life savings in an exchange but just leave something there for your day trading purpose only. So that in a likelihood of a hack they can only take a small portion of your funds. Used a strong password, and change it frequently, 2FA I believed is not a strong as it used to be in the beginning, but it is good to still enabled them.

There will be always exchange hacks.It's like old days of banks.They used to get robbed a lot.If  I were alive in those days I wouldn't keep my money at bank.Always store big portation of your Bitcoin ( like %70 - %80 ) in your offline wallet and use the rest of it for exchanges.

Exchanges are indeed prone to hacks. There is no deny to that. From Mt. Gox to Bitfinex, there are various incidents. The problem is not with the blockchain. It is more about exchange's security. That is the why it is always advisable to keep your Bitcoin in offline wallets and hold your private keys. Don't rely on exchanges for holding your Bitcoin. Never ever give your private keys to anyone or enter it into any suspicious link. Recently, a hack of that sort happened with Myetherwallet. Your security is in your hands.

If it is focus on the failed transaction we could categories it as a system malfunction for bitcoin becasie it is a result brought by the blockchain error that could manipulate transactions on one to many scale. But in terms of bitcoin transaction there is always an impediment happens everyday so it is a good thing to know that Bitcoin could acquire development and could have a better form of transactions for people ti experience.

The article is not about "your" coins.

That article is about coins you have entrusted to online wallets or exchanges.
And some of them are actually "hacks" done by themselves and then blaming some unknown entity.
Simple exit scams.

Of course , everything can be eventually stolen, except maybe your soul but that doesn't mean there are a million "hackers" out there who could in 2 seconds steal your coins.
If you take enough measures you can sleep easy at night.

But ledger wallet is a device too and it can fail anytime. Also i think ledger is risky in the sense single point of failure and prone for hack/compromise.

I agree with most of the comments here, the safest way to hold your coins and not be stolen would be to keep it in a hardwallet or offline wallet which mostly is the suggestion for most traders here.

I don't trust this paper wallets since you might misplace it somewhere. If you don't want your bitcoin to be steal by someone, use hardware wallet like trezor and so on, it is a little bit expensive, but at least you could assure yourself that your bitcoin is in safe hands, unlike those web wallets out there, Trezor is more safe and secured.

More bitcoin becomes popular,more will the hacking and stealing increase
The user must follow suitable measures to protect their crypto currencies

There are thieves everywhere in the world and of every kind; I mean different kind of thieves. Some thief stole ideas, some stole money some thief stole cars and kids. So we all will to manage a very strong security to safe our investment and bitcoin. Because if it is thief all the life savings will disappear in moment. Paper money or digital money all needs security, and the security should be very tight that no thief will able to break in and goes inter.

To protect your coins, you only need to use a hardware purse, not on the exchange, as many newcomers do, and also be careful of virus attacks and always make a backup copy.

all depends on your own ,, wherever we save bitcoin, if we are not vigilant, hackers can steal it, so you must keep your wallet key safely .. if it is online wallet still there is possibility of stolen ,, better use ofline wallet like trezor, hackers can't steal it.

There are so many ways to secure your funds you can buy any hardware wallet or make one in your usb. Just type on google cold storage for bitcoin you will find so mamy ways of securinf your funds offline. I would recommend you to buy a hardware rather than making one as it is more safer and when you make if you screw up a step you lose all your coins

very risky to keep our coin on exchanges for a long term because it is potentially to stole and scammed by exchanges it self. hard wallet is the most favorite wallet  to keep our coin safe. but did not every cryptocurrencies have hard wallet.

Good day . For me the best wallet to avoid thieves is web wallet instead of hardware wallet.  .and also wallet that have a 2factor authentication so that our bitcoin will be safe and secure. And also the best strategy to avoid thieves is changing your password every month. . I hope it can help .

I think it is not so easy to do this now because the bitcoin organization has launched a lot of safe and secure wallets for this purpose and using this wallet will make you avoid the loss of the bitcoin and it will give you more profit because you will be able to hold your bitcoin for long time using wallet will provide you a security key and the password of your wallet then no one can hack or steal your bitcoin until you share your wallet key with then and if they try for it then it is useless for them.

well according to me it does not make any difference to changes your transaction or your wallet I just want to say that mark my words respected mate that bitcoin is going to become more popular there are a lot of wallets that can make bitcoin safe and you will not be able to lose your bitcoin by the bad robbers and the thieves blockchain is my only selection in this case so take your bitcoin and put them into blockchain and your hardware wallets so get a move on…. And try it and save your bitcoin from extorting.

For me it is very risk that we have bitcoin in online wallet, because we don't know when the attacker attacked our wallets and be sure to backup our bitcoin savings in hardwallet or in offline wallet in order to safeguard our savings.
There are many ways that our wallet to be hacked and it is in our hand how to handle such things in our bitcoin savings.

It is a good idea to check the address 2 times you will send a virus, the virus will change the address of the opposite party during the transfer, that is, copy its own address.

Yeah that is true., the more the bitcoin or other crypto currencies become more popular the more the bitcoin hackers/thieves multiply. So for us just be carefull of using or even selecting your bitcoin wallet. To avoid lossing btc we should be responsible and be assured that all the details of our acc./wallet is fully secured.

of course it is very possible semangakin growing technology and create digital money so semankin a lot of hackers ,, fortunately melindingi your coins that is by storing in the wallet offline

As far as someone has his private key in his pockets, nobody can steal his bitcoins and I am sure no one is that blind to trust anyone with such credential. Still, this world has people of all kind and I can bet there would be people out there who have shared it already, especially loving birds.

Where can i read about storing my wallet offline? do i need some extra strong computer for it ?

You must hold your coins yourself, this way if you lose them you know its your fault. Leaving your assets on exchanges and wallets without the private key is dangerous and you should always be prepared for the worst.

For the online wallets, enabling 2 step authentication where you have to confirm a code text to your phone offers a bit more security and peace of mind. By default it usually is only above 1btc but you can enabling it on all transactions, as well as logging in etc.

According to the article, the thieves will steal the phone number and adjust the account which is an exchange wallet.
So, it's better to use a web wallet which doesn't rely on phone number to open it but only strong password.
Or, just use an offline wallet like paper wallet, hardware wallet, ledger-nano and trezor will be fine.

hackers not attack the blockchaine directly, but attack the most weak piece in blockchaine, they attack us, user of blockchaine

Indeed essentially all technology will certainly be a loophole for hackers to commit crimes. Because the hackers already have experience that is high enough in the world of security, which surely will provide many things to give many disadvantages for us. In fact the system is very secure, bitcoin inside just that extra security forces (your account) it depends on how you do it. Because most benefit from hackers a chance at security account you use, if it doesn't you can do all of your Bitcoin surely will disappear

I think blockchain is not easy to hack because it is equipped with 2fa.
although in the article it is said that they also steal phone numbers to get 2fa. but I think that's pretty hard.
the problem now is MEW & Waves. no special security to enter into waves & MEW accounts rely solely on private key. this is very easy once hacked, even if only use fishing web.

you can protect your coin, when you withdraw it but you cannot be succesful to that way so take the risk and trust your online wallet.

Lots of suggestions here to use hardware wallets, but do hardware wallets only work for Bitcoin, or can you store Litecoin, dash, monero,  Etherium, on there as well?

For me the best way to protect you coins is by having your hardwallet. It is morr secure than online wallet. If you can't afford to have one, I suggest you save your coins on a trusted online wallet then enable the two factor authentication or 2fa. It will add more security in your online wallet. Then avoid giving your details to unknown person and avoid clicking untrusted links because they might be phishing sites.

you can protect your coin...
when you want the best way to protect your bitcoins is storing them in a wallet.
i think blockchain is the best wallet

Use some hardware wallet or any trusted offline wallet, this way, you could secure your bitcoin to the fullest, also to assure yourself so you don't have to worry about it all the time getting steal by someone. Don't fully trust the online web wallets out there, because they are too vulnerable to hackers and could easily penetrate.

Unlike the hardware wallets, you are the only one who knows the private key and it couldn't be hacked since it is offline most of the time.

Yes bitcoin theft is for real and there have a some very intriguing thefts that shakes the crypto-market but the article also suggested good ways you can avoid this theft through cold storage and paper wallet us well as cautious trading. To any major reward there are great risk but the ability to make it out of the danger is the solution you must seek

Yes,Mt.Gox collapse is a big eye opener to all those who hold bitcoins in the exchanges.Otherwise,we should be ready to loose our bitcoins.I too used to keep a little amount of bitcoins in exchange when here was a huge transaction fee and transaction time was longer.But it is not advisable.So,its always better to keep our bitcoins in a desk top wallet say Electrum.But care should be taken to download that wallet from the official website only.Otherwise,we would have to loose our bitcoins just as a person lost his 40 BTC by downloading wallet from Electron cash.com instead of official wallet Electrum.org.

Maybe offline wallets can be effective ways to protect your holdings,  but I don't really believe that blockchain wallet can be reliable all the time to be effective of making it more secured. I know there were those options but offline wallets is the best way because it's free from intruders and connecting it to online transactions can be done only during sending the coins at trading sites.

good solution, this is worth trying. lately very worried about the case of coin theft. security is an interesting issue, fishing and various types of experiments are happening a lot.
maybe ransome ware is another case, but this is a concern. nothing is safe unless we try to keep it from being careless.

those situation mostly occur in trading exchange where lots of bitcoin and other all coin is in there and store them. In my opinion it is safe that dont store your coin on an exchange for a long time if you are not buying selling or trading. it is  good to keep it on your online or mobile wallet, if you have desktop wallet it is better  but if you will have hardware wallet much more safer. remember bitcoin is out growing really fast if there are money involve hacker and thieves  are alwasy in our back.

Yes, there are bitcoin thieves in market. Day before ago some one hacked my friends side and stolen all his bitcoin. Its a great digester for him that he earned with so costly and someone take away all his wealth. So we should careful about our sides.

Yes there are but they are called hackers because bitcoin is online and not in a bank so you cannot actually steal bitcoin but hack their accounts and have it that's how it works for internet thieves.

The main weakness is in ourself, when hacker successful  to cheat through phising, we finish... :o

Yes sir, I couldn't agree more myself. Having lost lots of Bitcoins on exchanges that closed, it is a very bad idea to keep them on exchanges for a long time.

Thieves are everywhere it doesnt matter if it is bitcoin or something else.
If you give them somehow your data you lose your money, if not than everything is fine.