Bitcoin Forum

my friends lost his coins from offline wallet when he was chatting online on facebook messenger
sure he can't restore his coin
so how can protect offline wallet ?

Hoe did your friend lose his coins in an offline wallet while chatting on facebook messenger? You should've elaborate what happened. The only way I can think how your friend lost his coins is if he saved his private key in messenger, or on his computer which might be hacked or has malware. That is why it is safe to keep your private key somewhere that is not online..

You need to specify more details. The flaw is not likely in the offline wallet. It could be, as already said, that the user has pasted the private key elsewhere. Online storage is not always safe, it depends on the person handling sensitive data and his practices in web usage. Number of attacks could be the possible reason of your friends loss. Some of these are phishing sites, suspicious links, or malware infected application installed on user's device.

Is this a paper wallet, or a hardware wallet, or something else? An offline wallet has a lot of factors and you'll need to clarify this to get help from the community.

I doubt the messenger app scammed you, might be good to verify its the real app though, do this via the play store. Did your friend send any data related to his wallet information via it to someone else? Maybe someone stole his funds via that.

It's probably not related to messenger and could just be malware on your computer.

Generate private key offline. Store the key on offline devices. This is enough to protect your wallet. Storing private data in online devices are very risky and can be compromised anytime.
If you are holding an amount >/= $1000, you must invest some more for a hardware wallet.

This is a discussion of technical discussion, please move the thread.

An offline wallet can't easily be hacked, especially if it is a hardware wallet.
Don't you think that his wallet has been compromised? Chatting online through facebook messenger cannot be the reason for his lost coin.
Maybe his private key where he saved it has been taken by other people.

You can protect your offline wallet by not exposing it to any online platform. I am sure that your friend somehow shared his offline wallet on Facebook or maybe he connected that offline wallet in there that is why someone was able to hooked and hacked into it. Anyway, I am hoping my guess is right otherwise it would be good if you can supply me and the rest here some details on how the incident happened. Nobody can ever be too careful, as the saying goes. There are now many ways, means, strategies and technologies that scammers and hackers are utilizing to trick us and steal our kept digital assets and I know the feeling when we realized we have become a part of the victim statistics. As the scamming and hacking industry is expanding at every turn, making sure that we are protected is a paramount concern.

that is simply impossible. so either your "friend" is lying about losing his coins or he is lying about his wallet being "offline". you should also keep in mind that creating a wallet online and then going offline doesn't do anything. the real cold storage wallet must be created on an offline and clean computer that has never been connected to the internet and will never be connected. you can simply use a live Linux for this purpose.

Protect it the same as how you protect yourself, do not leak any information about your wallet.
An offline wallet is the safest wallet to use, it can't be easily compromised. It secure's its users crypto, its private key can't be stolen as long as you hide it in a safe place.

What kind of offline wallet does he have? If it is on a hardware wallet then there's no way someone could have stolen the private keys unless he lost the hardware. On the other hand if he had the private key on a paper wallet and kept it at sight and maybe a had video conversation through fb messenger, the other party might have seen and noted down the priv key, but imo that's highly improbable. As an advice to protect your offline wallet be it on a hardware or on paper you should not keep copies of the priv key on your "hot" wallet aka your day-to-day use computer as you're exposed to a number of threats. Then be sure only and maybe a couple of ones you fully trust have access to it.

I have a feeling that by offline he means not fully sync'd bitcoin core wallet and probably kept on a hot computer. I don't know if he will return to reply but I am just guessing he was using Windows 10 and got some malware and it had nothing to actually do with Facebook.

Or another possibility is that his friend did have his coins offline and he accidentally or was tricked into revealing the 12 or 24 word private keys. I've seen this happen, people say they want to send you money and require the 12 words to know your BTC address, people fall for this and get scammed.

Pretty sure it's the former or the latter.

Possibly that could happen, when I was still starting here I used to put my private keys and other important stuff in my messenger but when Facebook notify that there's someone trying to access my account and that's it, I delete everything and just save it on a paper and keep it.

Hence, having hardware wallet is pretty safe as offline wallet but make sure laptop/desktop isn't infected.

Even if your friend uses a $1000 offline wallet, it won't protect him at all if he gives away his private key while chatting. Though I doubt he's that stupid.

There are countless discussions about this already. You can search using the search form or Google it.


That's a recipe for disaster. Facebook might even use it and then said your account was hacked when they're the ones who steal it.

How can coins that are in the offline wallet gonr just because of chatting online in Facebook masanger? this makes no sense. All I can reason is that your friend gives a key wallet through the masanger, or the device that your friend has is used by someone else. To access the offline wallet you need to access it on that device, or create a recovery key then use it on another device.

Yes its near to imposibble for your friend to restore the coins but your friend can track the transaction and see where it went though I find it strange to lose coins just by chatting, maybe your friend given access to the person he or she is talking to that is why your friend coins has taken during their conversation. There are lot of scammers these days so don't entertain any person via chat that offers a big ROI if you invest through him.

Securing your private key is the same way of protecting your offline wallet.
If ever you have given it to an unknown person, the chances of losing your assets will be big.

If your friend is somehow given the information about his wallet, maybe that is the reason why he lost his coins even if he is using an offline wallet.
An offline wallet is secured, it can't be hacked that easily unless you give it to others.

Offline wallets are based on private keys so the number one priority on keeping a offline wallet safe is securing your private key in a separate device/harddrive or even in written form. Pricate keys is the most precious thing we have so keep it safely! Lose your private key then you'ee done.

Wait, did your friend met with his friend from facebook messenger or what? You need to explain more details so we can know the whole of the story, and we can give suggestions on protecting the offline wallet.

But, the first thing that you should do to protect your offline wallet is never telling people who you don't trust, don't tell them that you have a crypto coin in your house. Keep it for yourself and your trust person so only you and he/she that will know. That is the basics way to protect the wallet, no matter if that is an offline wallet, wallet in your android phone, or wallet on your computer.

Your friend didn't just magically lost his offline wallet funds just by chatting on Facebook messenger. Chances are, your friend did something amateurish like handing over his wallet's private keys on to someone(may it be via a scam website, via chat, etc). His offline wallet is just as safe as how he secures his wallet's keys.

maybe he keeps a private key on his social media so that when someone hacks his account the hacker also knows it (there is a similitude) if you want to protect your wallet you can use the nano ledger it's not easy to hack because it's physical, unless you carelessly eliminate it, even though it's expensive in my opinion it's worth the safety.

First of all, please be more specific on how did he lose those Bitcoin.

As per my understanding there can be only two reason, either he has shared his privately accidentally or has send those Bitcoin accidentally on Facebook.

Never share the private key cause it is meant to be private and never talk about Bitcoin to strangers.

Follow the above rule and be safe.

There are many ways to protect your offline wallet. The first thing you should do is to make it private and never share it to anyone; in this way, you will avoid to get robbed. Also, do not trust someone who anonymously sending you a link, it may be phishing.

If this offline wallet were your friend lost his coins is suppose to be your cold wallet, then your friend was using it wrongly!
Maybe we need more info to give the necessary help has you have cut out the important details.

I cannot think of ways how can an offline wallet be hacked or infiltrated by just chatting on online facebook messenger. As we all know offline wallet  are highly resistant to attacks and also the way you tell your story lacks details. I guess he is using a cold wallet and possibly he was a victim of hardware keyloggers. Another possibility is that somebody knew of all the details about his offline wallet and just snatch it away from him.

Come on, this is kindergarden stuff.. It's kinda obvious you shouldn't share personal information with strangers, especially your online wallets? Telling somebody your Bitcoin account is as nonsense as telling somebody your credit card information..

Anonymously or not, links should always be verified before entered. It is more likely for your wallet to be penetrated by hackers or viruses than having your funds being stolen after telling somebody your private key or seed. By "offline" we usually refer to a Bitcoin wallet on a PC that's never connected to the Internet, but the OP apparently refers to something completely different.


If you have a PC that is not connected to the Internet, then you don't have much to worry about. Just take enough care when plugging in any USB stick because it could be infected.


If the PC your wallet is set up onto is Internet connected, then you must take precaution because fund loss isn't something unusual to happen and you could turn into just another victim of it. The best thing you can do is buying a hardware wallet if you are holding large sums. There are a few safe hw wallets around with different price tags based on which cryptocurrencies you are using. If you aren't holding large sums, then it probably isn't worth the costs to buy a hardware wallet but you should know you're always vulnerable and being a victim of keyloggers or cryptocurrency-stealing specific viruses could become a disaster for you.

A good option would be taking an older smartphone, resetting it and turning it into a cold storage. Most of us have an old phone lying around we haven't used in a very long time, and that could be turned into a way of storage not as safe as Trezor or Ledger, but surely safer than a wallet installed on a daily-driver PC.

I believe the OP meant the wallet was closed and their funds somehow vanished. As far as I know, you can grab the "wallet.dat" file from a specific directory on your computer, but that might be an outdated thing as the last time I backed up my ".dat" files was somewhere around 2014. If you can still grab the file and the wallet was not encrypted (if you encrypt the wallet, the ".dat" needs a password to be unlocked as far as I know), the OP's friend might've been a victim of hacking.


Although the hw wallets aren't very cheap though, I highly recommend using them. They give you the feeling of safety no other way of storing Bitcoin does.

I have never heard news like this before where your friend lost a coin in his wallet offline when he surfed with Facebook mesenger maybe your friend gives privacy to others and maybe your friend is not careful when storing his wallet coins and maybe when your friend is chatting Facebook Messenger appears to be chatting with the wrong person where that person can hack your friend's software.

There might be two things being stolen when you use an offline wallet, your friend gives a private key to someone, or your computer has a virus. Giving someone a private key is the stupidest mistake made by a user. Private key is something that is very "private" and confidential. no one can know your private key including official third party. And the second is a virus or malware, I have experienced one of these things, I installed an application sent by my online friends, and it turns out that the application has malware that allows them to record all activities that you do in your computer, including recording passwords and private keys that you enter.
how to protect them is to install an antivirus and be careful of applications and suspicious links

Even if you click offline links there is possibility that your wallet get robbed? I do not trust any of my friends seeing my wallet because even them can click that anonymous links that they get robbed. but mostly they are aware of this. I hope that everyone will know how exactly protect they're own wallet too not just me.

You should have posted the kind of wallet that your friend has. If it's an offline wallet then it might be a hard wallet. I wonder how did it happen. Facebook can't even access an offline wallet. Hard wallet cannot be hacked unless someone else robs it and knows its private keys. You should never entrust your wallets even your private keys with someone that you don't trust that much.

What?

How did this happen? That fast?

Offline wallets can be hacked but I don't think it happens that fast. If that really happened then I guess that is not in the time or the people he is chatting at that moment unless you are sharing valuable information about yourself or maybe about the wallet your friend are taking care of.

For me, the simple and easy way to protect your offline wallet is through saving its private key or passphrase then the put the offline wallet in a safe place. I think it's hard to restore his coins and no one knows who gets those coins. Maybe, his chatmate tells that he will make your capital double once he sends his coins so basically, he may got scammed by his chatmate and for me, it is only the reason why he lose his coins.

How did this happen? Just by chatting your friend has lost a coin?

Maybe he gave her his password or his private key. Because this is the only possible reason why he lost his coin.
You must provide enough explanations to give you enough solution.

Did he click any suspicious links? Any suspicious emails or messages? I am also wondering if that happened while he was chatting or it might be happening for a while now and you just noticed today? I don't really know what happens but one thing is for sure, you need to secure not only your wallet but also your PC as well.

Okay I cannot stress this out

Never install any app from sources you have no idea about , don't click on suspicious links , don't connect your mobile to Bluetooth of person you have no idea about , don't let anyone play with TeamViewer on your mobile.

These are like the basic things that you ought to do to protect the privacy of your mobile and everything alike.

Probably something like that happened. People often don't even pay attention where and what they click and later they are surprised when something happens. Awareness of security needs is extremly low.  Education of people about security and potential issues in virtual space is a must.

This is probably about misinterpreting what an online wallet is and what is an offline wallet. OP is very likely thinking of desktop, mobile or hardware wallet which in this case can be very easy hacked by asking the victim to send his/her private key/seed for some reason or to download a fake wallet.

The story can go something like this :

- Hacker: I found some vulnerability in Electrum, you may lose your coins if you do not update to a new version.
- Victim: What should I do now?
- Hacker: You need to download a new wallet from this link: electrum.xxx or send me your seed to check it.

Depending on how naive one is, in some cases, a hacker will manage to trick a few people with this story. Not so long time ago someone is posting some seed checker tool for Ledger HW on Reddit, and some users lost their coins by typing their seeds in that tool, how stupid that can be...

How could possibly this be. While just chatting in facebook messenger and then he did lost his offline wallet. I may be getting the wrong idea but may be he lose his wallet because he let his whoever he whom is conversing with deceive him. It could definitely be a bait link in which your friend find useful. He may be have lack of awareness towards hacking stuff. Because there is no other way around he could protect his wallet other than not letting someone knew his keys. Never ever click a link in which it has something to with his wallet other than the link of the wallet itself, else is a trap.

  Something is definitely missing in your write up,  did your friend disclosed his private key to the person he is chatting with? Or did he write it in an open place that someone else can easily get access to,  To protect your offline wallet,  make sure that  u back up your private key in different places,  and avoid exposing it to anyone

I think an offline wallet is secure enough to store your coins as a matter of fact online wallet is more vulnerable in this kind of thing. I think the problem is in your friend because he might not store his key but even so, hackers will not have access to it as long as the drive is not connected in a computer hence it is impossible. For better security, avoid clicking some anonymous links because your computer might some malware that could breach your private info such as keypass.

If he lost his coins in an offline wallet, then chatting online is not connected on what happened, I guess he printed out his private key and someone stole it (maybe) or he accidentally put it on the garbage he throwed outside, then a certain person got curious about it and didn't waste the chance to steal those coins (lucky for that person) whoever got his coins.

That was odd because I am using also an offline wallet for years already but I didn't lost any of my coins, probably just a human error, in your friend's case.

E D I T: Please elaborate the situation, be more specific.

It’s very uncommon problem i heard. Because as per as online wallet is a strongly secured. Just chatting on facebook’s messenger that's why wallet is got hacked it’s absolutely bullshit. I think he stored wallet private key or seed in facebook or share with others in unintentionally or something like that's happened. Because it’s not a easy to hack offline wallet. It’s definitely leaked from facebook’s messenger. He make big mistake to kept hold private key in online.                       

Offline wallet does not mean safe from thieves, they do everything they can to satisfy their depraved appetite. I've also experienced it, I was almost frustrated, because the only way to avoid it is to maintain the privacy of the private key, don't let others know ... that's all, and don't easily click on any links from strangers .

Don't really understand what you are trying to say. An offline wallet is completely safe and you can't click any links from scams since the wallet is offline and never connected to the internet, it's impossible to get anything stolen.

If you are one of those people that buys a Lambo and get a Bitcoin license plate and one day you are held with a gun to your face to reveal your private key then it's your own fault for showing off.

Many get targeted that way it's not only crypto investors, you look rich and you might become a target and forced to withdraw funds from an ATM.

A offline wallet is very safe as long as you have basic common sense.

Did OP really meant offline wallet? instead of online wallet? It seems like its not a typical typo for me.
No matter how I comprehend the kind of situation, I cant end up a better scenario for this except that guy who chatted your friend was a freakin magician :D.

There's no freakin way to steal a hardware wallet through online conversations.

In my opinion your friend private key was save in messager and other people knows that then it simply possible to hack although this is not offline wallet man. Even you can store your private key in hardware device then i hope hacker will not attack your wallet. Don't be putting your private key any others site because hackers will give you more offer.

Are you serious with your friend lost coin from offline wallet? I think very safety is you save your coin in offline wallet or using ledger hard ware, no body know hoe to stole coin safe in offline wallet because only your friend have access with hard ware wallet where he saves coin, maybe your friend give hard ware wallet to other people and give data for log in to his wallet.

How could you have a clue about he might stored/write the private key on messenger? lol it sounds random guesses to me. OP didn't elaborate the whole story specifically and I believe everyone here is clueless about what's happening that causing he lost the coins inside his offline wallet.

We don't even know what kind offline wallet he used ... is it a paper wallet? An USB wallet like trezor...? Or what it is exactly. I feel safe enough to have paper wallet where the crucial moment to me when you want to access this offline paper wallet you have to be careful about the spyware that could always records your private key whenever you input them.

That's all what I can say ..

Your friend must not send his private key to anyone via social media, or store it anywhere. They should have written it down on a piece of paper and stash it somewhere where no one would find it, at best. Other than that, treat the offline wallet as an offline wallet, meaning don't have it connected to the internet-enabled computer any longer than it needs to be connected for coin transfers to take place. Other than that, try not to lose it or have it stolen, and all should be well. As for restoring the coins, if they were stolen from the wallet, meaning sent to another address in a transaction done by a third party, those coins are gone. Crypto transactions are irreversible.

I think there are still a lot of possibilities to consider on why your friend lost his funds in his wallet. But the closes thing that I can't think of is a malware that is inside of his computer. Other things such as saving it in another computer or he saved something important in messenger that someone might've seen.

Maybe he was victim of phishing sites when he talks mostly on social media and links was sent to her and after clicking then you are already a victim ,you know how to protect your wallets from offline and online?stop engaging in social media and never click any links camping from random people instead from a tested people only so you are not prone from these scammers And hackers
That is the only reason why because mentioned that she was talking to a messenger and maybe giving a link or something like clickbait

Hackers can't reach offline wallets so they are safe but your freind might have been attacked when he was onliine on messenger and they stole the access to private keys at that time.So never store them in online way.

I still don’t get the correlation between chatting on Facebook and someone loosing offline wallet, the only way it would even have been possible is on online wallet, except maybe during the cause of the chat, he must have been carried away with the woman he was chatting with lol, and then exposed his password and his private keys to the person which should have been kept as secret, or could it be that he visited a site that had malware and them got installed on the computer which was able to give them access to the offline wallet.

The best way he can protect his offline wallet is to have it in a gadget he will not be using to visit all these websites, or just make use of hardware wallet like NANO because those are still the ones that can actually give him the safety that he needs and even at that, he needs to be careful of the information that he gives out when having chat with someone irrespective of how close the person is.

It is safe, unless they are going to force you to give them your private keys personally, I can't think of any ways on how someone could stole your coins in an offline wallet, that's mysterious, and can you please tell the whole story to let me get your point, that'll be much appreciated and we could easily give our opinions on what you are going to do next time to protect your offline wallet.

Warning: Human errors are futile to resist

How did your friend lost it while chatting if it is an offline wallet?
But to answer your question you should just be careful on what you would do with your wallet and where you would access it,
Don't easily trust people and don't enter from an unknown and untrusted sites.

The best way to protect your hardware wallet is by not sharing your private key or seed phrases with anyone. Do not share private key or seed phrases with anyone regardless of whether on Facebook charts, Whatsapp chart, Skype or Telegram. Beware of scammers because they are everywhere.

Why is your friend shared his private on Facebook chat? Now, this is a valuable lesson for you to learn, never share your private key with anyone anywhere. Always save your private key in a secure environment. Save it on a paper or flash drive and then hide it somewhere only you can find it.   

Does the wallet is hardwallet? if so then it can't be hack just like that it has a private key I conclude that while he's chatting I think I trusted that person that he gave his password or the private key itself that's a hypothesis number one the two is that your friend account on messenger got hack and I think the saved passwords and private key are there. There are many ways to have wallet got hack but its not on the wallet, but nevertheless let me gave you a tip that you should be careful on whom you trusted and always be wise. 

Failure itself becomes the main until our wallet is not safe. if we don't make a crucial mistake it's clear that the existing wallet is also safe.
the most crucial mistake is to often open email links from those we don't know and open the web that we often use from Google. 
links email and fake web , always making your wallet open and retrieve.

we all do confused by the case that op tried to elaborate.

it is just non sense with that short unfinished story, or maybe i suspect that he has problem in his english, no wonder.
an offline wallet like paper wallet seems easier to use and cost not as much as hardwallet like the ledger NANO , trezor , keepkey etc. which one op used? we have no idea and guess  i think he is just using paper wallet .
however i think op did not responded anymore to this thread meanwhile let's report to mod to lock this thread and if someone interested to create a thread about how to maintain/keep an offline wallet secure, would be great , i maybe making one later.

Okay, let's assume this unfinished story that the victim was sharing his private key online on social media or facebook messenger. I have suspected that the victim was accidentally shared the private key and that is very easy to recover the offline wallet into another wallet via importing the private key or passphrase. In this case, we should know our responsibility in keeping that valuable stuff and keep into a safe place and never trust people around you.

This might be the case since how can an offline wallet be accessed without any keys, or he save his key on the messenger, I mean by sending it to his own messenger since sometime I did it to save info but not private keys. Probably he send or his fb or receiver of the message fb access it or got hacked too. We should be careful about our key it maybe offline, in exchanges or mobile apps. Better have hardware wallet if plans to hold it long.

Of course keeping our wallet safe using offline resources can be done anonymously, and while making all important information towards it; I recommend using archive with password protection. Private key, passphrase or key store files is always vulnerable from any security breaches. That's why we're in need of these basic steps in protecting our valuable assets, because this involves a lot of money as it meets the desired value sooner.
One more important thing, don't store these privacy information at any of your google accounts, still not a safe idea.

I assumed that your friend lost his coin maybe because when he turned online which hackers have detected his wallet or he have been sharing his private keys in Facebook messenger. In my own opinion, the best thing to protect your offline wallet is avoid going online when you are not using your wallet and stop sending or sharing your private keys in social media sites because it is vulnerable in hackers.

It would  be much better to save the offline wallet on cloud, portable harddisk with lock, email account, and phone storage and still encrypted. And that's the safest thing i know on where to save offline wallet.

But how your friend lost the offline wallet? Did he sent the file? Deleted it? Controlled the pc by the other person? Much better not to trust anyone to access the offline walllet.

Wallet in cloud is too risky too, hackers can encrypt the password and all the security stuff so that they can get the access to your wallet. Better to put 2FA in everything. By using hardware wallet you may save the key to portable hard drive, because it is a read only memory, it not prone to any virus or malwares , you only need to take care of it and dont let it fall because the disk inside might be damage.

I think the best way to protect your coins is by using the hardware wallet. With a hardware wallet, both your bitcoin and altcoins are safe since the hardware wallet is completely off-the-grid. By using this type of wallet no one have access to your wallet but you. Make sure to keep it in a secure place.  

Of course! But the new challengd her is how do you make your hardware wallet secured? Hmm, using safety vaults could work but if you want to place it somewhere which no one whould have an interest to check it is on the book. Get an extra of your favorite book and carved a hole inside of it where your wallet could perfectly fit and place on it. You can store it in your bookshelf inside your house or bring it if you need it. I'm sure that robbers will not getting interested to rob a book right? ;D.

more precisely is that the hacker has managed to get your friend's private key and take all the coin assets in your friend's wallet. I think it's too risky to store coins in an offline wallet rather than an online wallet because the security in the offline wallet is not strong. make it that's a lesson for you to always be careful. remember, the private key is the main one and you must store it in a safe place.

If you know how to store your private keys well, Then it is safe. We can't avoid such disasters like having your physical wrote private key destroyed or stole but you can do such as backups to claim it as soon as you notice that it is in a dire situation.

I have one physical wallet for my main hold (bitcoin) and other wallets like multiple online wallets that I use for my daily activities, I've been using crypto since 2013 and I didn't experience any hacking activities into my wallets.


Better if you buy a hard wallet. It is far more secure than some other offline wallets.

Offline wallet is very safety wallet for saving your coins, you can hold multiple kinds altcoin in your offline wallet because very safety than you save your coin in online wallet like myetherwallet and exchange wallet, you can hold or save your coins in offline wallet how long time do you want and keep safety, but you have save your ledger offline wallet in correct place and never move to other hands.

Offline wallet is much more better than online wallet. I didn't get it why would you say like that, when with offline wallet, there is no way that hackers could steal your money unless you do something dumb like share the private key and let unknown people store it for ya.

It's just you and god that knows exactly what happen in hardware wallet.

How did your friend lost it when offline wallet is actually better than any online wallets? The best thing to do is to keep it safe and well. You have to keep it secure and protect your private keys. You shouldn't share it with anybody. Having an offline or hard wallet is actually safer than having an online wallet so securing and protecting it isn't hard.

I suspected that princehandsome is confused between hardware wallet and online wallets because whst he says seems irrelevant. It doesn't match withe the facts about hardeare wallet ;D. Anyway, like what I've said above, you can feel relief because you are now free from hackers somehow but the new challenge is how do you make sure that your wallet will not be personally stolen to you lol.

Cloud storage us a bad idea. Don't keep sensitive information online where someone could possibly get to it.
Maybe the friend never backed it up to begin with. This is why you must always keep two backups of every type. One one USB stick one on us HDD and 2 printed out QR codes.
This way nothing bad will happen and you will always have a backup. I think people mostly lose access to their own things more often then they are hacked.

Maybe the device that his friend using has a problem then he went to tech for them to fix it, but the tech knew that it has an offline wallet , or maybe he sell his device to someone without deleting the files , and lastly it is possible that the device you are using might have virus or malwares then hackers will blackmail him. Even hardware wallet are prone to hackers, a better security and firewall is needed.

just transfer it to a hardware wallet or paper wallet so you can protect your coins keeping it online can increase the chance of losing your coins and be careful when chatting someone online you dont know