Bitcoin Forum

Without exposure of your private keys, can your bitcoin be stolen ?

Your seed phrase can generate your keys (private and public keys), if your seed phrase is exposed, your coin can be stolen as well.

Also there are some kind of mistake that will let attackers to steal from your wallet directly.

How about malware that do not need to have access to your seed phrase or private key, like the clipboard maleware which can also make hackers to steal your coin.

Protect your wallet device as you are protecting your backup.

By exposure, you mean physical expose to the public or to anyone?
Your bitcoin will remain intact on your wallet as long no one has to your private, not their keys, not their money to spend. Your bitcoin will remain locked on your wallet and only your private key is will be required to unlocked them.
You should be mindful of how they are safeguard and stay away from malware like keyloggers, they are keyboard bugs that literally record everything you from your keyboard. You may think you keys are intact but they are exposed to another person.

Thanks for this, information gotten.
Have a great day ahead.

Try and go through these topics, it will help.

Good topics on security and privacy (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5239098.0)

How to lose your Bitcoins with CTRL-C CTRL-V (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5190776.0)

Nope. The thing though is, people do dumb stuff like saving their recovery phrase on their email, messaging app, a .txt/.doc file, etc without knowing that there's a very high likeliness of their keys being leaked one way or another. It's the thought of them thinking they're safe is what causes them the disaster.

There are different scenarios that could lead to a user losing their bitcoins:
- The most common case is when they leak their keys (private key or seed), whether through a malware that steals it or a malicious software they install without verifying it first or storing it in a dangerous place like in their email (generally on the internet).
- Another common case is when people store their bitcoin with a third party (in a custodial wallet or on exchanges) and that third party is incompetent at keeping them safe.
- The less common case is when they are using a flawed implementation that leaks their keys. Like the case with blockchain.info web wallet where they reused k that led to revelation of private keys of those who created a transaction during that time.

Like Storing your coins on centralised exchanges already is prone to risk as they have your private keys with them and as you might be aware of the scene that not your keys not your coins is common phrase in bitcoin.

Most probably if you have your keys safe with you with all the safety measures then it's impossible to steal your funds as well as seed phrase for your wallet which needs to backup safely.Then you don't need to worry as we all have stored them with precautions but if you are ignorant enough then it's hard to save your funds.

With your second point above, you wouldn't advice to keep such in exchanges and third parties ?
A loss here will see the exchange provide the bitcoin lost right ?

Your Bitcoin can be stolen when you give up access to its private key to others who can be your relatives, friends, strangers, hackers, exchanges or governments.

Not your keys, not your coins so as long as you are able to keep your private keys safely, your Bitcoins are safe.

• https://notyourkeys.org/
• Recommended wallets (https://www.lopp.net/bitcoin-information/recommended-wallets.html)
• How do I choose a wallet? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN6b62sEpsY&t=40s)
• Bitcoin Q&A: Using a Password Manager to Backup Crypto Keys (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEaGsvKU5D0)
• Crypto Security: Passwords and Authentication - Livestream aantonop (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8jlnZuV1i4)

It's always best when you keep you bitcoins on your wallet, the exchange is only there to trade where you either buy or sell, the day they fold up, that's the end of your wallet.
The exchange Hot/cold wallet can also get exposed and the chance of getting back your bitcoin will be very slim. I don't believe when they say SAFU( Funds are save).

The answer to your question is yes and there are many ways for something like this to happen.
I will give you 2 examples. A friend of mine opened a wallet on a blockchain but didn’t make a 2FA.
He would search for login link every time on Google search and once he went to a fake page and gave his login information, and right away his btc was stolen.
Another example I heard about was when an acquaintance wanted to save money so he bought a ledger on a classified ad, already used.
Of course, all his btc was stolen.

There are two types of wallets, the custodial and noncustododial wallet, this should be specifically about noncustododial wallets because custodial wallets and exchanges are like the same about control.

Exchanges have cold wallets too but the main wallets that is used is the hot wallet, that is why exchanges are hacked very often because their private keys are online and breached by hackers.

The best is to use noncustododial wallet for holding.

This is one of the most common among all and it could be of two type like intentionally and unintentionally losing access to your keys which eventually compromised your funds.

The first one is your greed which you intended like some victims claim that their funds were stolen and when asked they said they deposited their funds to some address which said double your funds within this time and out of their intention greed they deposited the coins there and then loose the funds.Like this is one of those examples :

 Elon Musk double your dogecoin scams by hackers  (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.deseret.com/platform/amp/2021/5/15/22436037/dogecoin-scam-snl-elon-musk-victims)

The second one is unintentionally like you clicked on some malware links that just planted a virus in your system that can hack all types of password or keys from your device and steal the funds from there.Many such cases have been also reported so it's advisable not to click on these fake links.

Keeping them with any third party exchange is very risky or say they have access to all your funds as they are owner of funds at that time having your keys so they could anytime hack your funds.That is why many times it's said not to use custodial wallets and these centralised exchanges.Your funds your responsibility.

You have mentioned some valid points here but still there is say lack of awareness or ignorance among people but most probably greed that deprive them of their funds and help the scammers in making their work easy and loose the funds.The decentralisation of funds mean you need to be careful with it as whole and sole it's your responsibility.

This is particularly very important as well, imagine that your device with your crypto wallet gets to the wrong hands and the person has a good knowledge of how to move crypto from one wallet to another. Getting the OTP from your mail or sim card to confirm the transaction will not be a problem as they are both open on the stolen phone. As there are no names attached to wallet addresses, trying to investigate afterwards may be tiresome and impossible. Try to secure yourself offline as well as online.

If you lose your bitcoins, it is tantamount to stealing. Maybe no one will be able to reveal your keys, but the way you store them may indicate what awaits you in the future.
I often see complaints from people who have saved their keys in text documents on their computers. A sudden breakdown of systems can lose everything vital to you.
I will not tell you how to save your keys, as there are a lot of examples, but the fact that the loss of bitcoins will be comparable to hacking, I think many will agree here.

No.

In the opposite, if you happen to unnoticedly exposed your private keys into different apps or place where it can be found by anyone then you're going to be surprised that you've been robbed.

That's why how you're keeping your private keys is vital and make sure that you're not storing it into anything that can be hacked or robbed easily.

Keep it in a safe place like no one would ever think that you've placed it there.

Yes, there is a way which is by accessing your wallet which you already logged into a device so they need to access your device and enter into the wallet and send it to their destination.

Another way is by clipboard hijacking which actually happened to lot of people, so never simply copy snd paste the bitcoin address and click send button, just make sure that the pasted address is same as the one you copied.

If this is the case, we should always use a 2fa security method in order to protect our Bitcoin from being stolen whether someone had access to your device or not we should always practice using 2fa for extra layer of protection. Keylogger is a common way of stealing someone's personal information by hiding it behind on a fake app and if someone who has Bitcoin would carelessly download some random app on any website then their chances of getting hack is obviously high. Always use a verified app or download only from playstore.

2FA can't be a good solution. You should always have full control over your fund.
With using a custodial wallet with 2FA, you lose the full control over your fund and give the access to your coins to a third party. In this case, the service provider can steal your bitcoin at  any time.

With the use of the internet, it was easy for the hackers to get rid of our Bitcoin when we are too careless in saving our private keys, passwords. We could ask how to make it safe 100%? Well, there is nothing to have that 100% assurance but if we keep them on the hardware's wallet, that seems better.

That is why most of the members advise you not to mishandle your keys and never let other people even touch your computer. If we value more our private keys and our Bitcoin then we should protect them as long as we can.

Reading down all of your feedbacks has been educative and impactful. I really appreciate learning from you all.
As there are lots of examples one protect my wallets at most in the hardware's wallet.   

Broadly speaking, a private key corresponding to the address on which there are your coins is the only thing that allows you to move funds to another, including the hacker's, address. If you lose it or it is exposed, your bitcoin could be stolen with ease. However, the thing is that in most cases, you are not dealing with your private keys directly, more often than not, you will download software or purchase special hardware that manages private keys for you. The information inside the wallet is encrypted and inaccessible to hackers, but you decrypt it each time entering your PIN-code, which is by definition a lot weaker than your private key and theoretically could be guessed or brute-forced by nefarious actors. So, if you lose your hardware wallet or your mobile wallet with a software wallet installed, you may lose your bitcoins as well, even without actual revealing of your private keys.

The exchanges are definitely giving users all kinds of promises that their platform is secure and use a lot of buzzwords involving the security. But they all get hacked and even though some may compensate the users but many of them don't. They can either run away with the money themselves or declare bankruptcy and never have to pay  you a satoshi.

Always remember that a promise is not a guarantee. It's just empty words.

pooya87, I would like to add a little, Even worse than bullshit, the promise is terrible when a non-reputable exchange platform guarantees the safety of users' assets. Not Your Keys, Not Your Bitcoin, this is one of the best suggestions to keep us safe from security guarantors on unreputable exchange.

Everyone who owns bitcoin must always pay attention to security, especially about how it is stored. Exchange are not completely safe to store bitcoin regardless of amount, it never guarantees asset safety even if it is a reputable exchange. Have a secure wallet (hardware/recommended) and that's the way to really pay attention.

Scammer often don't need your private key to steal your Bitcoin. You just help them to do it. For example copy paste or entering in scam or phishing sites. But is your private keys leaked or stolen then everything will lost. Most of the s am happening by hacking your device. So it's vert important to keep your device safe. Don't believe on free or double money ever, they will steal your funds without private keys. Learn more about cryptocurrency and gain knowledge. That's how you can save your funds.

2FA is not going to save from both instances I mentioned above, its just a security layer to protect when someone manages to brute force our exchange wallet password from somewhere on the internet, even still 2FA can be bypassed if few ways even though its not that much easier.

Yes, it is possible by having a human error of course. Most of us want to keep our seed phrase based on the recommendations like using the paper but again it's prone once you lose it might cause losing access to it like someone got and knows what it is. Also on the online like saving it through social media accounts specifically in messages, documents, notes, etc. Also common is phishing and clicking as suspicious links as possible it's better to become aware of different possible risks to your wallet to prevent getting stole your funds.

As for now, I'm using electrum with a hard wallet which is more secured I have full access to my funds at the same time more backup and secure the seed phrase.

That means that you are the first person responsible for your bitcoin holdings. If you are a bank owner then you must have security so that the money in your bank is not stolen by robbers and this is the exact equation when you have bitcoins in your wallet. Human errors can be prevented, there are many recommendation that can be tried and some of them are surfing the internet safely and protecting privacy.

I also use electrum, it is quite safe and easy to access if we know how to use it properly and safely. Never install any application from untrusted sources, it is a safe way to use online wallet on your computer or mobile.

If you're keeping your private keys safe there's a possibility of exchanges getting hacked so keep your Bitcoins on your own wallet.

2FA provide additional security, it is still protecting the wallet but some people make the mistake by having their wallet app and 2FA app on the same device, this is where the mistake is coming from. It is good to have the 2FA all on a different device so that it will be difficult for the wallet to be compromised.

Self custody is the best but some people prefer custodial means, if not your key it is not your coin. It will be good to make your post clearer next time, what you are trying to say is true.

Yes, you know bitcoin users are assigned   private keys,which allows access to their wallet if you are not careful with your key,may be you do login with different devices it might be easy for the hacker to steal your bitcoin.

What do I need to access your wallet without knowing the private key from you?. All I need is the seed phrase of your wallet and I can get the funds stored in that wallet so yes your btc can be stolen if your seed phrase is exposed even if you didn't expose your private key. It is possible to get the private key using the iancoleman site which I have tried using a dummy seed phrase and I am able to access the wallet and I also checked if it's the same wallet address which it is the exact address.

We need some important information and data such as Private keys/seed phrase / mnemonic phrase/ PIN, password, and other types of important data where you can access the wallets. Once the people know one of them, they may be able to access your wallet and steal your Bitcoin or other assets.
On the other hand, if this is about the other condition is such as stealing your Bitcoin or cryptocurrency from the links (including malware or others) in order to access your wallet is also possible. And this also sometimes happens when you once click the links.
And if there is a hacker targeting your public keys, they may be also able to do that by some tricks.

It's a rare case but its possible Bitcoin can be stolen even without exposure of private keys in different factors.

Don't use a custodial wallet, they're prone to hacks.  We have several stories here of hacked Bitcoin wallets using the custodial wallet and for now, a better wallet could be an open-source hardware wallet that doesn't leave any trace or footprint even you have used on a computer that is infected with malware.

Keep your private key safe not online and it should be offline, everything on the internet are possibly prone of hacks.

To avoid this then its really much better to stop clicking those unwanted or unknown links came randomly on our emails or other unfamiliar website which is related to crypto since most from this the malware came. This is the basic and one of effective methods for our bitcoin not to get stolen. And if some cases that we can't avoid to use those web wallets or app wallets we should be careful not to store huge funds since most of this wallets are vulnerable from attacks.

I really do appreciate reading all of your response, it will be a great part of me now and in the future.
The forum is unique, only those who find is hard/difficult to read and observe won't be successful.

Yes, you are right mate that user who is Lazy enough to read and gather more information takes time to improve or be successful but that User who manages their time reading and stops spamming un-useful topics/or replies will be successful in the right/short period. Here in the forum, all we need is to read Useful threads so that the knowledge and achievements we want to achieve are very easy to reach.

Back to the topic we must be careful to our wallets so that our bitcoin can not be stolen do not greedy to open unnecessary links/sites that contains gathering your information/ about on your wallet.

You have given a good advice

No, they cannot stole your bitcoin unless you give them your private key. Private key is considered to be a more option but if you lose it, you can also goodbye to all your digital assets.

Some hackers used different methods to stole your cryptocurrency.And one of this example is "Phising". It is the most effective way to steal your cryptocurrency which gives the hacker to access your device,or personal information thru email or links.

Phising scams via malicious ads and emails are widely spread in cryptocurrency world.So be careful in making crypto transaction and avoid any suspicious unknown links.