Tips so you don't get your coins stolen.

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

1.Disable Flash on everything but youtube(or anything you deem safe)
2. Disable or delete Java.
3. Don't download cracked programs OR download only those older than 2012 or older.
4. Don't store your wallet on Dropbox.

Follow above steps, and you don't even need to run an anti-virus, which is btw, recommended. You can thank me when your 1btc you kept safe is worth $100k.

[charlieSeen]

I would say that the best advice is to simply don't make it known that you have a lot of bitcoin personally.

You should also keep your bitcoin stored on a computer that you use only for bitcoin, and you send yourself an email whenever you need to send bitcoin to a specific address.

[KriszDev]

You can encrypt your wallet.

[ArbatDeli]

Most important thing is not visiting suspicious sites/downloading suspicious files.

[sgk]

Encrypt your wallet and keep it in cold storage.

No stealing, FTW

[DrG]

I would say that the best advice is to simply don't make it known that you have a lot of bitcoin personally.

You should also keep your bitcoin stored on a computer that you use only for bitcoin, and you send yourself an email whenever you need to send bitcoin to a specific address.

Not the best advice.  Most of the people losing coins of their own local machine lose them through malware/trojans.  They don't have to type a single thing on these forums but if they click and download too much stuff their coins are gone.

Email is horribly insecure.  And most people don't have the option to have a second machine.  For those that do you can make a cold wallet that will never see the light of day (no internet connection whatsoever) and you can send coins there and they can never be stolen short of somebody stealing your paper wallet at home.  Even that you can protect with an M of N wallet - the knowledge is there on these forums, you need to read.

[DrG]

You can encrypt your wallet.

Encrypting the wallet is good - but only if you can remember the password.  The problem with this is that so many users come back 6 months later stating they forgot their password and need help brute forcing it.

Encryption via passphrase is also only safe if there are no keyloggers on the machine.  If you have a high entropy 40 symbol passphrase and the keylogger captured all that - as simple wallet.dat stealing trojan can take all your coins.

To be safe the keys need to be kept offline --> cold storage.

[WillyBTC]

Most important thing is not visiting suspicious sites/downloading suspicious files.

Dumb as it sounds, this is right. Got to be careful wit dem bitcorns.

[resya]

1.Disable Flash on everything but youtube(or anything you deem safe)
2. Disable or delete Java.
3. Don't download cracked programs OR download only those older than 2012 or older.
4. Don't store your wallet on Dropbox.

Follow above steps, and you don't even need to run an anti-virus, which is btw, recommended. You can thank me when your 1btc you kept safe is worth $100k.

5. Encrypt your wallet with a strong password, 10 - 15 chars in length with random characters. Do not store your wallet and password in the same storage
6. Install no-script addon to protect our computer from malicious scripts when visiting untrusted site

[e-coinomist]

Email is horribly insecure.  And most people don't have the option to have a second machine.

Indeed the email subsystem needs a total replacement. It is just utterly done for, finished! Seemingly the Idea behind Bitcoins was about inventing some sort of Postamps, to cool down SPAM delivery a bit.

On the second machine, you can use an USB stick with a tiny install of linux. One of the biggest flaws of Windows is it's strong ties into your harddisk. An operation system should not clink that much on a platform.

[DrG]

Email is horribly insecure.  And most people don't have the option to have a second machine.

Indeed the email subsystem needs a total replacement. It is just utterly done for, finished! Seemingly the Idea behind Bitcoins was about inventing some sort of Postamps, to cool down SPAM delivery a bit.

On the second machine, you can use an USB stick with a tiny install of linux. One of the biggest flaws of Windows is it's strong ties into your harddisk. An operation system should not clink that much on a platform.

While I have some experience with Linux, the sheer majority of Bitcoin users (I'm not talking about miners where 1/2 know Linux) will only know Windows.  Asking somebody to learn a foreign OS just to obtain security is asking too much.

There are Windows based alternatives that are well polished and more secure and versatile than the default Windows-QT.  Windows-QT is still needed for people to run the nodes.

New users should spend a couple hours in here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=37.0

[whiteflight31]

Code:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=159424.0

This thread has helped me a lot, so I suggest reading this if you have any doubts.

[Yuki1988]

1.Disable Flash on everything but youtube(or anything you deem safe)
2. Disable or delete Java.
3. Don't download cracked programs OR download only those older than 2012 or older.
4. Don't store your wallet on Dropbox.

Follow above steps, and you don't even need to run an anti-virus, which is btw, recommended. You can thank me when your 1btc you kept safe is worth $100k.

5. Encrypt your wallet with a strong password, 10 - 15 chars in length with random characters. Do not store your wallet and password in the same storage
6. Install no-script addon to protect our computer from malicious scripts when visiting untrusted site

1. Checked, flashblock installed.
2. Checked.
3. Checked.
4. I used truecrypt to first encrypt my wallet file before putting it on dropbox.
5. Checked. Plus, my entire HDD is encrypted with truecrypt.
6. Checked.

 

[newflesh]

Think the easiest solution is to have a dedicated (clean) pc for storing your coin that's never used for browsing the internet or downloading software. Best to store large amounts of bitcoin in paper wallets, just make sure you've printed them securely and be aware that certain printers store info of the documents they've printed.

[cassimares]

Put a really really long password for your bitcoin wallet (make sure you don't forget it).

[obocaman]

When do you think 1btc will go to 100k?   

[obocaman]

1.Disable Flash on everything but youtube(or anything you deem safe)
2. Disable or delete Java.
3. Don't download cracked programs OR download only those older than 2012 or older.
4. Don't store your wallet on Dropbox.

Follow above steps, and you don't even need to run an anti-virus, which is btw, recommended. You can thank me when your 1btc you kept safe is worth $100k.

5. Encrypt your wallet with a strong password, 10 - 15 chars in length with random characters. Do not store your wallet and password in the same storage
6. Install no-script addon to protect our computer from malicious scripts when visiting untrusted site

1. Checked, flashblock installed.
2. Checked.
3. Checked.
4. I used truecrypt to first encrypt my wallet file before putting it on dropbox.
5. Checked. Plus, my entire HDD is encrypted with truecrypt.
6. Checked.

 

Is truecrypt still safe? the website says its not :S

[Kprawn]

Best bet, Create Paper wallets on a computer not connected to the internet. {Even a old computer, when you upgrade} But it must never be connected to the internet again.

Then create loads of "dummy" wallets. {These are used for confusion and frustration and to serve as honey traps}

Dump all coins not being used on a daily basis into Paper wallets {Spread them across many wallets} So if you need to import coins, you would not need to import everything you have.

Only put coins online, for small DAILY transactions. {Paying for cofee etc.}

This just lower your risk, too loose massive amounts at any given time. {Example : Klee Hack} Keep some "dummy" wallets around the house too. {If they get "picked" up, you know someone is trying to steal from you}

Cover your WEBCAM! / Use AV / Firewalls / ToR / 2FA etc.. etc.

I do all this and more for VERY little satoshi's, but you need to do more than this if you have loads of coins. {If someone hacked me, he would have been better off working for a day at Mc Donalds}

[obocaman]

Best bet, Create Paper wallets on a computer not connected to the internet. {Even a old computer, when you upgrade} But it must never be connected to the internet again.

Then create loads of "dummy" wallets. {These are used for confusion and frustration and to serve as honey traps}

Dump all coins not being used on a daily basis into Paper wallets {Spread them across many wallets} So if you need to import coins, you would not need to import everything you have.

Only put coins online, for small DAILY transactions. {Paying for cofee etc.}

This just lower your risk, too loose massive amounts at any given time. {Example : Klee Hack} Keep some "dummy" wallets around the house too. {If they get "picked" up, you know someone is trying to steal from you}

Cover your WEBCAM! / Use AV / Firewalls / ToR / 2FA etc.. etc.

I do all this and more for VERY little satoshi's, but you need to do more than this if you have loads of coins. {If someone hacked me, he would have been better off working for a day at Mc Donalds}

But that seem very inconvenient. If bitcoin goes mainstream, will people do this? how many coins will be lost forever if they lose their wallets? 

[Kprawn]

Best bet, Create Paper wallets on a computer not connected to the internet. {Even a old computer, when you upgrade} But it must never be connected to the internet again.

Then create loads of "dummy" wallets. {These are used for confusion and frustration and to serve as honey traps}

Dump all coins not being used on a daily basis into Paper wallets {Spread them across many wallets} So if you need to import coins, you would not need to import everything you have.

Only put coins online, for small DAILY transactions. {Paying for cofee etc.}

This just lower your risk, too loose massive amounts at any given time. {Example : Klee Hack} Keep some "dummy" wallets around the house too. {If they get "picked" up, you know someone is trying to steal from you}

Cover your WEBCAM! / Use AV / Firewalls / ToR / 2FA etc.. etc.

I do all this and more for VERY little satoshi's, but you need to do more than this if you have loads of coins. {If someone hacked me, he would have been better off working for a day at Mc Donalds}

But that seem very inconvenient. If bitcoin goes mainstream, will people do this? how many coins will be lost forever if they lose their wallets? 

If you have a lot of coins and it's distributed and stored at different locations, you would not loose a lot, if say your house burned down. Why would you keep them all together?
You could even have "backup" copies stored at different locations. {Bank safe deposit box / Friends house etc.} Just keep the private key, seperate from the Public key, assosiated with it, if you store it
at a friends house or parents.  And write some sort of code on both, only you know, to identify what joins the 2 together.

And laminate the paper wallets. {Very important} To keep it safe from water damage or insects.