Phones on mobile wallet becoming riskier

[_act_]

Offline wallets are most secure, a good idea is to transfer just small amount from offline wallet to online wallet if you see online wallet necessary for making transaction often or get a hardware wallet which is cold wallet that you can use often for making transaction. If you need online wallet for making transaction, it is not good to use a mobile phone wallet, use a desktop wallet that you do not carry about like phones and that is safe from malware.

See what is happening in London

‘Crypto muggings’: thieves in London target digital investors by taking phones

Thieves are targeting digital currency investors on the street in a wave of “crypto muggings”, police have warned, with victims reporting that thousands of pounds have been stolen after their mobile phones were seized.

One victim reported they had been trying to order an Uber near London’s Liverpool Street station when muggers forced them to hand over their phone. While the gang eventually gave the phone back, the victim later realised that £5,000-worth of ethereum digital currency was missing from their account with the crypto investing platform Coinbase.

In another case, a man was approached by a group of people offering to sell him cocaine and agreed to go down an alley with them to do the deal. The men offered to type a number into his phone but instead accessed his cryptocurrency account, holding him against a wall and forcing him to unlock a smartphone app with facial verification. They transferred £6,000-worth of ripple, another digital currency, out of his account.

A third victim said he had been vomiting under a bridge when a mugger forced him to unlock his phone using a fingerprint, then changed his security settings and stole £28,700,

In another case, a victim told police that his cards and phone were pickpocketed after an evening at the pub, with £10,000 later stolen from their account with the investing platform Crypto.com. The victim was using his phone in the pub and believed thieves saw him type in his account pin, the report said.

These mugglers will know that crypto transactions are not reversible and if crypto wallet is set up properly, it will be very difficult to trace the muggler after the attack. People should not be telling people of the bitcoin and altcoins they have because no one can be trusted, anyone can send someone to attack. This has just been the start, there are many other harmful ways there can be people that can be physically attacked to steal cryptocurrencies from them, some might lead to wound or beyond. Let us be careful.

[DdmrDdmr]

While I do agree that there is a risk to have easy access to a wallet through a very easily visible app on one’s phone, and I also commented on the fact on my local board within a greater context, I do find that the reported cases by the media:

-   Are not quantified, to get a sense of proportion or magnitude, in order to see how widespread it is.

-   Are exemplified through only a handful of cases, which may be lucky lateral findings.

The thugs do have enough crypto knowledge to make the crypto TXs though, and possibly acting in the financial district of London, do have crypto in mind as a by-product of their mugging expectations.

The reported cases though do not really tell us exactly how they accessed the victim’s accounts; whether they were cohered to hand the passwords over, or whether they has some kind of auto login. I’d suspect the former.

Some phones do have features to hide, or at least make app less easy to spot, and it could be a thing to consider. Nevertheless, I figure one also has to be rather conscious, and in addition, gain a habit of deleting the apps from the list of recent apps or background running apps.

[mk4]

Regardless if it's easy to trace the funds to the thieves or not, it's obviously simply not worth risking. $5 wrench attacks have always been a risk, since like forever even before Bitcoin existed. Hence why I'm a hard advocate of simply not letting other people know that you own bitcoin/cryptocurrencies.

https://github.com/jlopp/physical-bitcoin-attacks/blob/master/README.md

[StormHawk]

Naaah, what makes you think that a desktop PC is safe from malware? PC is always vulnerable to attacks every minute unless you don't do the following on the PC

1. Browse the internet.
2. Download stuffs online.
3. Play PC games on your PC.

There are many ways how malware or spyware can land on your PC, smartphones aren't like this.

[Welsh]

Classic sensationalist headline, DdmrDdmr is spot on in my opinion. The thing is phones, especially online phones have never been a good idea, at least for storing a significant amount of Bitcoin. However, I can see their uses for small amounts. Android has a good permission system, the locking system on it is decent, depending on the options you choose i.e don't use a pin or fingerprint, use a password. The problem with phones is people are more inclined to download apps which they haven't verified or know they can trust, and also connect to networks which they don't trust. Otherwise, they are pretty decent apart from a few issues.

The fact is, even if you do have a Bitcoin wallet on your phone, it should still be encrypted, and should lock after exiting the app even if it has been kept in memory or the open apps drawer, and you should be able to hide the icon. Android, at least custom ROMS usually have this option.

[Doan9269]

Offline wallets are most secure, a good idea is to transfer just small amount from offline wallet to online wallet

Yes, this is another display is wisdom in handling the wallet and the risk attached to the mobile wallets is reduced for the sake of those that can't do without having the use of online wallet especially those with centralized exchanges making daily trading, except for the case of those who failed to realize the danger in putting all their coins on CEX.

The thing is phones, especially online phones have never been a good idea, at least for storing a significant amount of Bitcoin.

I strongly agree with this but I've come to think of it in some situations whereby the need for the use of a mobile phone and wallets on them couldn't be avoided because its an easy, fast and reliable means to makes any cryptocurrency transactions without having to worry about location, device or any other barriers before one can enjoy the suitability in making any transaction.

But just as advised, i will employ users to make use of an offline wallet and preferably with the use of electrum mobile wallet which could serve an open source but i will also give a warn to avoid the automatic backup of the wallet keys on cloud or google drive.

[khaled0111]

When it comes to malwares and online attacks then I don't believe wallets on desktop devices are any safer than wallets on mobile phones unless this device is totally air-gapped (offline wallet).
If your concern is the $5 wrench attack or losing your phone then having your coins on a mobile phone or carrying a hardware wallet with you when you go out doesn't make much difference, supposing your mobile and the wallet app are secured with a strong password/pin.
What you should do is to keep all your coins on an offline wallet and keep on your mobile wallet just a small amount enough to cover your expenses while being out.

[Queentoshi]

These days, people who are more comfortable using their cellphone for business other than a personal computer now go an extra mile of owning two cell phones, one for personal use and the other for business. Anyone with a concern that muggers may easily access their wallets on their phones can get two phones as well, one which everyone can see, and another that you keep privately and don't move around with. Another method to use if you can't get two cellphones is to lock and hide any crypto related application on your cellphone.

[LoyceMobile]

If they target a Coinbase account, it's not even a wallet. I'd never give my phone access to an exchange or bank. There's no 2FA either if it's all in the same device.

I don't even use my real email address on my phone.

[_act_]

Some phones do have features to hide, or at least make app less easy to spot, and it could be a thing to consider. Nevertheless, I figure one also has to be rather conscious, and in addition, gain a habit of deleting the apps from the list of recent apps or background running apps.

I have used this several times on my Android phone, hide the wallet app and password it.. But I have noticed to broswe more with phones and use phone more for daily online reasons while my PC is not connecting so much online than my phone, because of these, I moved my online wallet completely from phone to my PC. What is most risky that I do not like about phone is that people are using fingerprint for everything they want to access, making the risks of this kind of coin theft to be high, but following security way of handling phones can help just like you said.

[Doan9269]

These days, people who are more comfortable using their cellphone for business other than a personal computer now go an extra mile of owning two cell phones, one for personal use and the other for business. Anyone with a concern that muggers may easily access their wallets on their phones can get two phones as well, one which everyone can see, and another that you keep privately and don't move around with. Another method to use if you can't get two cellphones is to lock and hide any crypto related application on your cellphone.

I believe we are as well expected to guide our mobile devices with safety by taking some security measures, always put your mobiles in your bag or pocket, avoid holding it too much frequently at hand except you're using it, though i understand from the name implies "mobile handset" but still yet we have to be security conscious and avoid rendering it to vulnerability of attack, there are somethings we ourselves do to attract the attention for an attack but when we are security conscious then we increase the safety from our own end as well.

[Alisha-k]

Hiding apps on mobile devices is still not safe i just agree with hard ware wallets or paper wallet as safest except for urgent transactions a small fraction can be transferred across mobile wallets for immediate transaction. Thieves are getting more digital and advanced lately and many spend time learning how to debug and cack down softwares to steal informations

[Oluwa-btc]

Stealing Robbing and Thuggery of mobile phones are nothing new in the UK! We see them on BBC news.
A whole lotta violence out there on the streets, were they also forced or coaxed to input them seed phase ? (Victims)

Stealing etc have been in going even before C-C!! and BTC

[crwth]

This will be the case now for a more modern theft or something. It's not just the wallet applications but also the trading exchange applications that can be utilized. If there is access to the phone, then they can manage to log in to the app (they are probably hoping that it's still logged in) and then probably withdraw in some way. They could also put to use the wallet apps. Imagine custodial wallets just requiring you to receive an OTP to your device, and you can then send the balance you have on that wallet to another one.

It's going to be a hard thing to do, to manage everything in one device and then lose it. People should be vigilant with their smartphones.

[Israelgogo]

Phone mobile wallet is prone to alot of risk, due to Lost of phone,Robbery attack ,phone hacking, easy access to phone by friends and close once all in the name of using your phone, phone damages and forgotten passwords,it also has it advantage for effective monitoring of your accounts and market rates ,for fast easy transactions anywhere.

[taufik123]

is not a guarantee that desktop wallets cannot be attacked by malware, even more violent malware is designed for desktops. Mobile wallets are still more secure than desktops. But it all also depends on the user. Use double security with antivirus and it will help the wallet to be more secure.
Actually everything is vulnerable whether mobile wallet or desktop, make sure not to be careless and not to install unknown apps. stay alert, don't give the private key to anyone.

[ShowOff]

Android, at least custom ROMS usually have this option.

Right, I have it for android phone at the moment. The custom ROM option will allow us to hide any apps we use including the wallet because when we switch to multiuser the phone will only show the default apps. This method may be useful if bitcoin users are comfortable enough using a mobile wallet to make transactions. Security depends on the personal of the user, there are many options but there are risks.

[mk4]

Right, I have it for android phone at the moment. The custom ROM option will allow us to hide any apps we use including the wallet because when we switch to multiuser the phone will only show the default apps. This method may be useful if bitcoin users are comfortable enough using a mobile wallet to make transactions. Security depends on the personal of the user, there are many options but there are risks.

While this is an option, you don't even need to install a custom ROM to have those app hiding features. Nova Launcher, the best customization launcher back then has this hide app feature whereas you can only see the hidden apps when searched; and I'm pretty sure numerous other launchers also has this feature. Not the very best solution, but at least your bitcoin wallet isn't in the spotlight.

Also, always use your mobile wallet as a hot wallet. Probably only with a maximum of $200 worth of crypto or so. It's sucks to lose $200, but at least its only a minority of your stack.

[Welsh]

Custom ROM's just have more privacy, and security features than the default usually. Not always, some default Android's (Manufacturer's alterations) are pretty good. I guess the question then is if you trust your manufacturer. To a certain extent, if you're using their hardware already, you do.

While this is an option, you don't even need to install a custom ROM to have those app hiding features. Nova Launcher, the best customization launcher back then has this hide app feature whereas you can only see the hidden apps when searched; and I'm pretty sure numerous other launchers also has this feature. Not the very best solution, but at least your bitcoin wallet isn't in the spotlight.

That's right. Custom ROM's usually utilize preexisting launchers that you can get without actually running custom ROMS. Although, I'd recommend a open source one if possible. I'm not too familar with Nova launcher that you've recommended, so can't comment either way.

Whilst on that topic. Open source custom ROM also. Although, as far as I'm aware most of them are, since they build from phh's treble. Except for a few.

Also, always use your mobile wallet as a hot wallet. Probably only with a maximum of $200 worth of crypto or so. It's sucks to lose $200, but at least its only a minority of your stack.

While I do somewhat agree, I'd probably recommend users only store as much as they can afford. That's going to be different from person to person.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

it is not good to use a mobile phone wallet, use a desktop wallet that you do not carry about like phones and that is safe from malware.

When it comes to malware, Spyware and the likes, desktops are more at a risk of catching this viruses than mobile phones, desktops can easily download documents, apps and all sort of files while you browse or have data connected, even without your knowledge.
Using desktop wallets,( without adequate and proper security softwares installed and running) is far more riskier than using mobile wallet.

In the other hand, mobile wallets (no matter how insecure it looks like they are) can not be easily ruled out of this game because of their ease of use and how convenient they are, many of us are crypto traders on the go, we need our mobile phones, and the mobile wallets in other to be able to buy, sell, withdraw, send, store our crypto even while on transit, we need the mobile phone and wallet to be able to monitor the market and grab financial opportunities when they show up on the market even while we are traveling.

Some phones do have features to hide, or at least make app less easy to spot, and it could be a thing to consider.

Yes, this is really a good advice and it's sure a thing to consider, even if the phone does not have the hide feature, there is an app or apps on Google playstore or iPhone app store that can do the job effectively and efficiently, I have the app on my phone through which other apps can be hidden, the app itself can also be hidden, you can't want to ask: How then can the app be opened when needed?
Here's how....
When downloading and installing the app, during setup, you will be required to setup a passcode of your choice, this is the code you will use to unlock the app, but incase you also decide to hide the app also, when ever you need the app to open, you just go to your dial pad and type in the app passcode, after typing, press the "#" sign and the app will open automatically so that you can access your hidden apps.