Crypto Security 101, c/o Binance Academy
At Binance, we expend great effort in ensuring that our users’ accounts are safe and secure. On top of our platform’s security features and a proactive approach to combating bad actors, we have launched many programs that aim to ensure that each user is well aware of what he or she has to do to keep their funds SAFU.
All our endeavors are guided by one principle: that security is the most important thing when it comes to dealing with blockchain and cryptocurrencies. In this nascent blockchain ecosystem, it’s great to know the best practices in terms of security and privacy, from being aware of potential security risks to taking prudent actions to keep vulnerabilities, hackers, and bad actors at bay.
At Binance Academy, we regularly provide new lessons on blockchain, including topics related to security. And we are serious in our mission to educate the general public about security, and we offer this cryptocurrency knowledge across all nations, with recently-launched support for 15 languages. In fact, we want to know how aware you are about crypto security and how we can help out in enhancing your knowledge. More on that later in this article.
But before that, you might want to read on for a compilation of some lessons you can learn quickly about crypto security.
General Security Practices
The first step to keeping your crypto secure is having the right mindset when it comes to handling your crypto. Here are three important attitudes towards security:
Maintain your privacy. The less you reveal about yourself and your crypto activities, the less information is out there that can be used against you.
Protect yourself. Learn about how attackers can go after your crypto, and defend all your accounts through strong passwords, 2FAs, and more.
Be your own bank. Crypto allows you to gain access to your digital asset possessions safely anywhere in the world with just your private keys. Safeguard these keys very well.
Binance Academy expounds on these tips here.
Beware of These Attacks
Click on each term to learn more about these risks and, more importantly, how to keep yourself safe from them.
A keylogger is a tool designed to capture all keystrokes of your computer. Attackers usually insert this tool into an unwitting user’s device and capture passwords with it, compromising a user’s account.
Phishing is a type of cyber attack where a malicious actor poses as a reputable entity or business in order to deceive people and collect their sensitive information.
A Sybil attack, in the cryptocurrency context, is a kind of security threat on an online system where one person tries to take over a blockchain network by creating multiple nodes.
Cryptojacking is the unauthorized use of a device to secretly mine for cryptocurrencies. An attacker inserts malware on a user’s device then makes use of the processing power and bandwidth of that device.
Ransomware is a type of malware (malicious software) that has the final goal of convincing victims to pay for a decryption ransom in order to recover their compromised files or system.
Binance Academy provides more lessons on cryptocurrency security here. Just select “Security” under the categories.
Security Terms 101
Beyond lessons and videos, Binance Academy provides a one-stop glossary where you can read about just about every term. This glossary is constantly being updated so that we can provide the most recent information. See some of the terms here:
Custody: ownership of one's funds or assets; in crypto, holding custody of a wallet and its assets also means holding the private keys and the responsibility of keeping funds safe.
Ponzi Scheme: a scam in which new investors' funds are used to pay returns promised to previous investors. Do not invest in these.
Eclipse Attack: when the majority of peers on the network are malicious and monopolize the network in order to prevent specific nodes from receiving information from honest nodes.
Paper Wallet: a pair of public and private keys that individuals can print out onto a sheet of paper for safekeeping.
For more explanations for each crypto jargon, head on over to Binance Academy’s glossary.
Answer Our Survey, Get a Chance to Win a Hardware Wallet
When we said we want to know how much you know about crypto security, we mean it. We encourage you to fill out this security awareness survey from Binance Academy and get the chance to win a Trezor hardware wallet. This promo runs until the end of 2018.
For more lessons on blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and related topics, head over to Binance Academy, where you can increase your blockchain knowledge by taking advantage of informative videos, lessons, and features. Now available in 15 languages, Binance Academy seeks to enlighten the world when it comes to the importance of blockchain and its potential to change the world.
The Binance Academy articles above are also available in Arabic, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and Vietnamese.