Bitcoin Forum

Which Operating System is the most secure for having a wallet of BTC? Including immunity to viruses, troyans and so on.

MOD EDIT:
See https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=218040.0 as this site is probably a scam

I can tell you with my own experience, dont save your keys at a server from for example mtgox.com or bitcoin.de. I had 3 BTC on it and they were stolen. Now i made a PaperWallet and have 50 BTC and dont have any problems. I made it at www.bitcoin-address.org and put it in my safe.

nothing is, just use the OS not many are using which means less people will want to make stuff to compromise it = Linux

AmigaOS

Encrypting your wallet will go a long way as well (although nothing is foolproof).

The only secure OS is the one that has never been connected to any network...which kind of defeats the purpose of mining...

It doesn't really matter which OS you choose - just that you keep it completely offline.   Linux or other UNIX-like os's will be the most versatile and able to be run easily from flash drives and on lightweight hardware.   I like the idea of using Raspberry Pi for a hardware wallet.   Its small, cheap, can be easily firewall if you do want the ability to give it online access.  It runs on flash so its pretty simple to clone.   I recommend using file-system encryption (cryptsetup + luks) to secure it.

Uh.. yeah..  because noone has ever hacked a proprietary OS...


To answer OP's question:

Closed Source:
Windows - bad authentication mechanisms and weak security modle coupled with a traditionally poorly QA'ed code base.
Mac OSX - sad when you can read through freebsd errata from 10 years ago and find exploitable bugs.  Anything you hear about Mac's being secure is purely marketing.  The same way oracle said their database was "unbreakable" 10 years ago.

Open Source:
Linux - highly dependent on distribution and packages installed.   If you enable ASLR (most non-debian based distros do this), non-exec stack & heap, use chrome, trim down the setuids, run minimal services, and partition different tasks (and subsequent access permission's) to different users and/or groups, you can build a pretty secure box.
Pretty much all the other open source OS's are unfortunately poorly maintained in recent years or lack competitive security features.
 

cold storage.. An offline wallet that sends coins to an online wallet that then does the actual transaction.. (BTW Newbie to forum, trying to help ;))

Edit: or some type of stand-alone wallet hardware, like arduino

Look up tails linux

It's because OS X is based in unix, which linux was modeled around

"LINUX" stands for "LINUX Not UNIX".

Oh dear, did someone start a flame war

It really depends on what you do with your computer.
If it's behind a firewall, you don't download any untrusted software, you don't copy-paste commands into the terminal, don't share your wallet directory over a network, have a password protected login and you keep some reasonable web smarts like not opening Java applications on untrusted websites, any OS is a good OS.

Try to keep it on a machine that only you have access to as well and if you're feeling really paranoid, encrypt the folder or drive your wallet resides in.

I also think about using a "storage" wallet and a online transaction wallet.

What kind of Linux System would you prefer for putting it on a Flash-Disk or USB Stick to boot from?

bump

Tails would be a good choice since it's based on Debian and it's geared towards anonymity and security.

Keeping your coins on a flash drive seems more secure.

Avoid Windows, it's the most unsecure OS out of the box

And do not think you are "safe" just because you use a certain OS, only way to be quite secure is to use paper wallets and/or cold storage.

Ehhh, storing your wallet securely and mining have exactly nothing to do with eachother.

I store my BTC in a dedicated Ubuntu Live install on USB which has never been connected to the internet (disconnected & removed all network interfaces). Locally generated a bunch of private keys there, stored with encryption (and backed up on several locations of course). Exported the public addresses to a windows environment, so I can check my balance and send savings without Ubuntu, I only need that to actually spend it (which I do by signing transactions offline). Private keys are NEVER exposed outside the secured disconnected Ubuntu environment, ever.

And I keep a 2nd wallet with just some small pocket change on my regular Windows system.

Why?

I'd say it makes no difference whatsoever. It all depends on how you access (spend) them and how they are stored. Are they encrypted and backed up, for example?

Windows 98 ofc  ::)

Has anyone here heard of TEMPEST? You're all worried about your OS/software leaking info, BUT I BET NONE OF YOU HAVE SECURE MONITORS!

Also, you there, up the back, yes, you, why aren't you wearing your tinfoil hat?!

As has been mentioned before, the most important thing for you to do is to separate out the amount which you want to store long-term (aka savings) and the amount which you want to use in day-to-day transactions and treat them separately.  For the latter a simple encrypted wallet is probably the right balance of security and convenience with possibly a hardware key in the near future as they become more stable.  For the former you need to do everything you can to keep your private keys away from others.

If you boot a live CD/USB distribution on to a computer not connected to the internet and generate your keypairs there it's a good first step, then you need to take whatever measures you feel appropriate to manage your private keys.  This can be any combination of encryption, cold storage, obfuscation etc. but remember that you do need to be able to get them back (and if you want your next-of-kin to be able to access your bitcoins in the event of an unfortunate meteor strike then you need to ensure that they can carry out the same procedures as you).

OpenVMS http://hp.com/go/openvms of course.

I think i just try some of these to create a safe wallet

From my understanding, OS X is actually not as secure as everyone thinks. However, no attackers want to target it because a very small portion of the market uses it. Thus, Windows gets the brunt of the hackers.

Tails off a live cd is about as good as it gets.

Open BSD,FreeBSD