Know your enemy. Who is going to make you lose your funds, and how are they going to do it.

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Know your enemy. Who is going to make you lose your funds, and how are they going to do it.

I've worked it out to 5 enemies that are the biggest threat to your funds.

I've been in crypto for over 8 years, and I've seen all the security issues over the years, heard all the stories of people losing their funds, and have run into several security issues of my own.

The big scary stories we hear in the media is always about how some super-hacker is going to steal your funds by typing really hard on their keyboard. Or someone breaking into your house and looking for where you "hide your Bitcoins". But that's actually not likely to be how you lose your funds.

These are the ones you really need to watch out for:

1-Phishing. It's the most popular among thieves, simply because it's the easiest. It can take the shape of an email seemingly for an exchange or a hardware wallet like Ledger/Trezor, asking you for your credentials.

Sometimes phishing can be sneaky. It can take the form of an Amazon online order. It's not always going to be an email either. It can be someone impersonating a mod on here, or really take about any form.

Nobody is ever gonna ask you for a your recovery seed phrase. So if someone asks you that, you know it's a scam.

2-API keys are another big enemy. That's something you set up on an exchange to give access to a 3rd party software for instance. Sometimes you do need to use them. But make sure you don't allow them to execute trades or withdraw funds. Sometimes if you use trading bots, then you do need them to do that. That's where hackers can use exploits, which can be done by selling you malicious bots.

3-Fake sites and fake apps Another enemy are those shady apps in Apple and Android stores, or sometimes you may download a fake wallet for your phone, or a fake GUI for a Monero wallet for instance, or for 3rd party all for Trezor. Sometimes it's even the entire site that has been spoofed. One common way they trap you to fake sites is through Google ads, which lists the fake sites at a top of a search.

4-Exchanges While they are no longer flimsy in security like in the past, and are getting harder to hack, the issue with exchanges is not so much hackers any more, but bugs, bad customer assistance, and poor teams and management. Those are still capable of losing your funds, locking you out, scamming you, or shutting down.

5-Yourself Of all the ways you can lose your funds, this is actually your biggest enemy. It's probably the most common way people lose their funds, and now accounts for almost 20% of all existing Bitcoin being lost forever.

"Yourself" is also the longest list of different ways to lose your funds. A lot of those fall under user error. But you can also be your own biggest enemy in poor decision making.

People losing their funds is not always about forgetting a password or sending funds to the wrong address. It also takes the form of falling for scams too easily, or simply putting your money in the wrong project and buying things like Iron Titanium. Or putting money in the right project, and pulling out at the bottom of the first dip.

And when it comes to security, it's not always a case of losing funds to thin and flimsy security. People have lost their funds for also having too much security, and locking themselves out of their funds with no backup.

Use those 5 different areas as a guide to start evaluating your security, and see how you can better protect yourself for what I see as the 5 biggest enemies of your funds' safety.

If you have other enemies you personally find as a bigger threat, feel free to comment about it.

submitted by /u/fan_of_hakiksexydays
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