Protect Yourself

Brave Web Browser

Take your privacy back! First let’s help take care of all those nasty sites tracking you and get you a more secure browser. I would recommend installing and using the Brave browser. It speeds up your browser by removing ads and tons of sites connecting in the background that track your every move. This also saves network bandwidth.

  • Crypto Wallets built right in!
  • Earn and distribute Basic Attention Tokens (BAT) right in the browser. This is the future of websites, which allows you to send and receive micro payments in BAT tokens.
  • It allows advertisers to advertise directly to you and you can receive BAT tokens for allowing them to reach you. You can also disable ads entirely, this is what I do as it’s just not enough for the hassle. You’re in control!
  • Based on Chromium, so it should work with your Chrome Extensions.
  • The WayBack Machine is built in and gives you the option to view on older page for web pages that aren’t there anymore like error and 404 pages.
  • Tor is also built right in which anonymizes your browsing traffic.

Download Brave Browser Now

Password Manager

Next, get a good password manager like LastPass. LastPass is a browser extension which will store your passwords as you create them on websites. It will help you create a new password for every single site that you register at. This is in case that website is hacked they will only have your password for one website. Hackers collects lists of user names and passwords they hack and try them against all other services. LastPass does all of the encryption in your browser locally before storing the information in the cloud. They have a mobile app as well. Once you store a website you should use the LastPass password manager to open that site. This is so that you are not tricked into going to a website that looks like the one your are really intending on going to. One typo and you can end up on a hackers website and expose all of your account information to them. Wallets can be drained in seconds.

If you don’t feel comfortable with an online solution, KeePassXC is a good option to store your passwords locally on your own computer. Just make sure you back it up or you could loose access to your wallets and lots of other things.

Download LastPass Chrome browser extension

Two Factor Authentication (2FA)

Install the Google Authenticator app or other 2FA app like Okta on your phone from the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store. You should enable 2FA on every website that you can, especially your email account and any financial accounts. Don’t rely on using On-Demand One Time Password (OTP) authentications methods such as email or SMS. Although these methods are better than just a passwords and are sadly used as the primary OTP method by most major banks they do not prove you have possession of your device.

Malware Protection

A good place to start is with Malwarebytes. I would recommend installing this on both your desktop and mobile devices.

Malwarebytes was one of the first software that detected the Barcode scanner trojan that infected millions of devices recently through a Play Store software update.

eMail Addresses

You should setup a second email address for all the sites you signup for. I keep anything I do money transfers with separate from all the other websites.

Second Computer

If you have a substantial amount of crypto assets you should consider using a separate computer just for interacting with your larger wallets. This can be an old laptop or even a Chromebook that you have all the security up to date on.

Airdrop Security

Airdrops are awesome to get but there are a lot of malicious people in the space as well. When working with alpha and beta contracts they could be safe one day and malicious the next. Here are some tips on keeping safe out there.

  • Treat everything like it is a scam until proven otherwise, including things you see on this website. We try and review what we can but like I said above a contract could be safe one day and malicious the next.
  • Use a decentralized VPN like Mysterium VPN to protect yourself. A VPN masks your true location, prevents someone from DDoSing your local network, encrypts your traffic from local threats like man-in-the-middle attacks from local WiFi hotspots or compromised carriers.
  • Use a separate computer for testing and trying new things.
    • Use an old computer
    • Use VirtualBox and create a virtual computer
    • Use an inexpensive Chromebook or similar
  • If you do not have another computer that you can use I would suggest using a different browser at a minimum. There are many to choose from today and I would suggest Brave(Brave is hands down the best browser out there for your security), Firefox, & Chrome.
  • Use a hardware wallet like a Trezor or Ledger to protect your larger amounts of crypto.
  • Use a new software wallet or test wallet whenever interacting with something new. It’s generally pretty cheap to send on chain transactions, so just create a new wallet and send yourself enough crypto to get done what you need.
  • Windows users are targeted the most in security attacks. There’s the greatest number of them and the security of the operating system is the weakest. But mobile users are increasingly becoming the number one candidate for attacks. Never keep a large amount of crypto on a mobile device. You can lower your attack surface by using something else like Mac OS, Linux, or a Chromebook.
  • Don’t spend / invest more than you can afford to loose!