Never use Coinbase wallet's private key back up feature

[bbc.reporter]

A big no was the first word that entered my mind after reading the first sentence of this article.

It will certainly be a public service for the community to tell everyone not to back up their private keys to any cloud storage platform service. I do not care how safe and secure they are.



Coinbase Wallet users will soon be able to back up their private keys on personal cloud storage platforms Google Drive and Apple’s iCloud. NO.

Read in full https://www.coindesk.com/coinbase-wallet-to-feature-private-key-backup-on-google-drive-icloud

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[elda34b]

Yeah, this is surprising and I don't understand why they go that far. Pretty sure only someone who doesn't understand about private key and its security would be using this feature. Hell this mean hacking Google Drive or iCloud would be so profitable, I wonder how many hackers will try to attack them if this feature really got implemented.

This is not making life easier, instead it makes stealing private key too easy.

[Ozero]

Of course, creating backup copies of our private keys in general, and even more so sending them to cloud storage, is extremely dangerous. We should keep private keys only in ourselves, everything else is easy prey for hackers. If possible, we should not even keep secret keys from wallets, even on our personal computers, tablets and smartphones. After my Google account was hacked and some of my coins were stolen, I don’t even copy my secret keys, but I manually rewrite them and also manually insert them to avoid any copying. After that, I don’t have any more problems with private keys.

[eaLiTy]

A big no was the first word that entered my mind after reading the first sentence of this article.

It will certainly be a public service for the community to tell everyone not to back up their private keys to any cloud storage platform service. I do not care how safe and secure they are.

Coinbase Wallet users will soon be able to back up their private keys on personal cloud storage platforms Google Drive and Apple’s iCloud. NO.

If anyone is planning to store any sensitive information online if you hear an advertisement about how secure they are, make sure that is leaked or in the hands of another person. What ever secure features it has, the development team will have back end access to all your secure files   and as a user there is no way you can monitor all those things or any companies safety practices, so be smart and just take a print out and keep it safe in a locker is the best suggestion rather than risking your investment.

[Herbert2020]

a while back i said Coinbase is a bitcoin bank to one of those silly topics asking whether banks will ever adopt bitcoin. now you can see how they are turning more and more into a bank every day. basically you are giving up control over your money and no longer use bitcoin, instead you use a bank called Coinbase and pay them fees to use your own money. then they not only report your ass to IRS and NSA for every single transaction but also can block your money if they decided to have some fun with you!

[jseverson]

Well it's going to be encrypted at least, so there's that lol.

The backup feature is encrypted with AES-256-GCM encryption and accessible only by the Coinbase Wallet mobile app, Coinbase said.

Still not the best idea, but I imagine there are a lot of non-technical Coinbase users who might appreciate it. If you absolutely have to use it, at least make sure you use a strong password.

But yeah I'm not going to go with a hard no, because if you're storing large amounts in Coinbase, you're already doing something wrong anyway lol.

[NeuroticFish]

Coinbase Wallet users will soon be able to back up their private keys on personal cloud storage platforms Google Drive and Apple’s iCloud. NO.

I've read this somewhere not long ago and I laughed. I was expecting Coinbase know better.
I mean, iCloud is known that it has been hacked/exploited. I don't expect anything better from Google cloud.

On the other hand, there are plenty of (smaller?) cloud services that at least offer encrypted storage for all the files.
If done properly, even the file names could be encrypted. You know, in a sea of encrypted data, it's more difficult to find the data you need.
I don't say it's the perfect option (cloud storage never was), but it would have been a way better one than Google and iCloud 

[bL4nkcode]

Even using their platform will give a huge risk to your funds since you don't have the fully access of the private key, and in addition for this feature.

But people still keep using the platform because its reliable and can be trusted. So to those users that isn't tech savvy regarding to their fund's security can use it as alternative for security/backup but those people who knows the risk will ignore it for sure.

[boyptc]

I have read this news on social media and the first thing came to my mind that it was a very bad suggestion.

[stompix]

Cloud backup is optional and you have to opt-in to activate it. You will still have the option to view your recovery phrase and back it up manually as before. Because we offer cloud backup as a convenience, we recommend that users also backup their passphrase manually after activating the cloud backup service.

They are just offering the cloud back-up as an option, you can still use the traditional way.
The title should be "Never use the could storage ...." not all the back-up options.

Your backup is encrypted with AES-256-GCM encryption and accessible only by the Coinbase Wallet mobile app. The backup can only be decrypted using your password.*

I hope they have some serious minimum requirements for this password.

a while back i said Coinbase is a bitcoin bank to one of those silly topics asking whether banks will ever adopt bitcoin. now you can see how they are turning more and more into a bank every day. basically you are giving up control over your money and no longer use bitcoin, instead you use a bank called Coinbase and pay them fees to use your own money. then they not only report your ass to IRS and NSA for every single transaction but also can block your money if they decided to have some fun with you!

I said that for years
Online web wallets are becoming the new banks, exchanges the new libor manipulators, bitpay and others the new visa and mastercard...
And seriously, between Mario Draghi and Craig Wright, I choose Draghi with no hesitation whatsoever.

[kkgfhj123]

The person who holds this private key holds ownership. In cases where we use various wallets and exchanges to store our crypto tokens, this private key is with them. We just have access to those tokens via a username/email id and password to that wallet or exchange. This is risky since the ownership is not with us. Most of the times the exchange wallets are on the internet and such wallets are called Hot wallets. Hot wallets pose a maximum security risk since they are connected to the public internet while those stored no a “cold wallet” are not.

best ways to keep cryptocurrencies safe

1. Safety from Phishing Scams
The most common kind of scam is a phishing scam where a hacker sends emails or directs the user somehow to a fake site where the user enters their password. This password is received by the hacker. Be careful of the sites you open, check their security certificate and do not open emails from unknown sources.

2. Keep your device safe
Another common method of hacking is to install some kind of malware on your phone or computer and then steal sensitive data as it is being entered by the user. The device that you use for trading cryptocurrencies should be kept free of any kind of unknown programs and with an anti-virus at all times.

3. Keep private keys with you / Do not store on exchanges
Do not store your crypto tokens on exchanges. They get hacked all the time. Centralized exchanges do not provide you with your private keys. This means the crypto is stored in their wallets – hot or cold. And if they were to get hacked, you lose your tokens.

4. Enable two-factor authentication
5. Avoid public Wi-Fi

Read the complete article here: https://coinswitch.co/news/10-best-ways-to-keep-your-cryptocurrencies-safe-in-2019

[o_e_l_e_o]

I'm sure Google and Apple will be thrilled that Coinbase has just made their Cloud servers a massive target for hackers.

You are placing trust a complex process of encryption, transfer and storage, which I have no doubt will not be open source. You are also trusting Google or Apple to protect their servers from hacking (which they have shown repeatedly they are incapable of doing) and/or not build in a backdoor for law enforcement agencies that ask for it. You are also trusting your own ability to create truly strong and non-brute-forceable passwords, which we know 99% of the population are incapable of doing.

Bad idea all round, but no doubt many newbies will use it anyway.

[bitfocus]

WTF!!! why would coinbase introduce such stupid feature that puts the users and investors in a voluble situation!!

[SiDtHeBeSt]

A good thing by the OP to notify other members about this. I myself won't support storing private keys for bitcoin wallets to be stored in any sort of online cloud service because if during an event of a cloud service getting hacked it would risk all the private keys and the bitcoins as well. According to me, notepads on personal phones and Macs are a way better way to store away private keys.

[Yamifoud]

We don't know their real intention's why they put at risk our keys, once they were hack it absolutely everyone could be possible to be hack as they can easily trace the keys. I'll do back up but I never put it in any online storage, I'll right it in a piece of paper and keep it safe. Even though how secured our keys still we can't guarantee of it, anything will do for online transactions still leaving any traces and could lead for hackers. We just be luck if we are not their target victims.   

[cleygaux]

Agree this is alarming to every Coinbase users who has huge amount of btc in their account and decided to backup its private key on this cloud storage services this will become the target of many hackers once implemented, why Coinbase is so confident about it? The most secured websites and cloud services today can really easily penetrate by hackers, every private key stored is at risk.    

[UmerIdrees]

Yeah, this is surprising and I don't understand why they go that far. Pretty sure only someone who doesn't understand about private key and its security would be using this feature. Hell this mean hacking Google Drive or iCloud would be so profitable, I wonder how many hackers will try to attack them if this feature really got implemented.

This is not making life easier, instead it makes stealing private key too easy.

For a moment if we think this will create an extra level of security as the private key is stored in cloud services but who will grantee that these google drive or iCloud storage will not be hacked. If this is implemented, you will see more hack attempts on these services as people will try to exploit the vulnerability in these services to hack people private keys.

[martina14]

Having a private keys is one of the safety feature of our wallet.
But saving it to cloud storage will never be a good option to do.
Never do that and you will be at risk once happen.

[bp124]

This is really not Secured  measures  they have to put , i we all know internet is not fully secured but using google drive and icloud storage  for private  key backup  will never solve the problem but it will give the hacker opportunity  to start hacking people gmail account and icloud account ..  i think they must  find a great solution for that ..  because this is not advisable ..

[avikz]

I am certainly in agreement with the OP that we shouldn't back up our private keys in any kind of cloud storage no matter how secure and safe they are! However, Coinbase is an old player of crypto market and I think a lot of efforts they have put in before announcing this.

It is essentially a method to recover your wallet if your device gets stolen for any reason. The private keys are encrypted and can only be used in coinbase wallet coupled with your own password.

I would encourage everyone to read the actual blog post of coinbase first and then go through all other third party views.

https://blog.coinbase.com/backup-your-private-keys-on-google-drive-and-icloud-with-coinbase-wallet-3c3f3fdc86dc