One of the biggest problems that budding cryptocurrency enthusiasts face is keeping their cryptos safe and secure. This has become increasingly important in the wake of cryptocurrency hacks attacks and stolen cryptos.

Between January and May 2018, over $1 billion in cryptocurrency was stolen by hackers. Many of these were stolen from exchanges that have decent security measures in place.

This begs the question: if the exchanges with all their security aren’t immune to hack attacks, how much more you? This is why you need to pay serious attention to your security.

While there are many security protocols, the one we’ll be addressing here is called the air-gap.

This is the process of keeping the devices that have your wallets and cryptocurrencies disconnected from the internet. Otherwise called as cold storage, this is about the safest way to keep your cryptocurrency tokens safe and secure from security breaches.

Naturally, this means you would have to first move them out of all hot wallets, and transfer them to these cold wallets. Once done, you can then secure it keeping it away from the internet as well as deactivating its bluetooth, and Wi-Fi features too.

In case you’re wondering if having a private key isn’t enough security, we’re telling you it’s not. Hackers are getting more savvy and smart at logging into wallets and emptying them without needing the private keys.

These keys used to be the holy grail of security measures. Unfortunately, that’s no longer enough. You need more than that. Air-gapping can be an amazing addition to your security protocols, keeping your tokens safe and away from the prying eyes and long reach of hackers.

This is even more imperative for users with a large or high value cryptocurrency portfolio. While some folks recommend that air-gap only when your cryptos are valued at over $1 million, we recommend anything above $200,000. After all, that’s almost thrice the income you’ll need every year to reach something called the “happiness index”.

Truth is no matter your security protocols, chances are there will be some chink in your armor that could potentially leave you vulnerable.

Crypto security is as much about frustrating the malicious entity who is trying to steal from you. So, even if you put up all these measures, it might still be easy for a hacker to get access to your air-gapped system. How?

One of the easiest ways to hack an air-gapped device is to have physical access to it. This means the hacker would have to find a way to access the computer or thumb drive. In both instances, the hacker can do this themselves or have someone else do it for them.

The mode of operation often involves either the installation of a keylogger or spyware on the computing device. This is even harder if the hacker is dealing with an individual who has a limit to the number of people who come and go in their private space.

The entities that need to be very concerned about this are companies and organizations with staff that come and go. All it takes is a little blackmailing or even switching thumb drives to get the hacker on the company’s intranet.

This is why smart security conscious companies keep their air-gapped devices in secure data centers or even offsite, and setup USB port blockers that only they can unblock. This way, even if an employee or member of staff is compromised, they still wouldn’t be able to access the machine.

Of course, this would require the hacker to actively understand and know the where the computer is first. Still, hackers can hijack the computer’s speakers or microphones for the purpose of transmitting the necessary data to their home computer.

The only downside to this is the homing equipment that the data will be transferred to cannot be farther than 65 feet away from the computing equipment.

The reality is that while you can have a dedicated air-gapped computer, it’s often always better to use a USB stick instead. But if you’d rather use a computer, you can always take the security measures a step further by sandboxing the wallet on the air-gapped computer.

With a virtual machine installed on the computer, you can further insulate the wallets from any possible intrusions. This adds an extra layer of security to your air-gapped devices.

We know that this might seem a little extreme to beginners and people unfamiliar with crypto hacking events. But, if you’re trying to secure a lot of cryptos, we think these measures are smart and standard.

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