Hello friends,

Security! Security!! Security!!! should be your watchword on Steemit. This is where many newbies make a mistake that haunt them for the rest of thier Steemlife. The first rule of thumb is that STEEMIT IS NOT FACEBOOK/TWITTER/INSTAGRAM. When you lose your account on Steemit, you are actually losing money. So its no joke.

Security attacks on Steemit accounts may just increase as the value of Steem increases further. Imagine that steem price is $10 and you have 100 STEEM. That's $1000USD easily. Then just imagine the mega-whales and the amount of money involved.

Even Steemit Inc. are quite aware of the importance of security, thats why they put this message for you in your wallet:

The first rule of Steemit is: Do not lose your password.
The second rule of Steemit is: Do not lose your password.
The third rule of Steemit is: We cannot recover your password.
The fourth rule: If you can remember the password, it's not secure.
The fifth rule: Use only randomly-generated passwords.
The sixth rule: Do not tell anyone your password.
The seventh rule: Always back up your password.

Here are tested and trusted methods to keep your Steemit Security 100%.

1. KNOW YOUR KEYS & KEEP THEM SAFE

I met a newbie that lost his MASTER KEY password a few days ago. And his reason was that the passwords were too long for him. Lolx. Well, this ain't Facebook bro. This is STeemit. On Facebook you can as well just use your birthday as password. On Steemit, you have access to 4 different passwords which are meant for 4 different purposes as follows:

MASTER/OWNER/PRIVATE KEY:

• this is the first key that is handed to you at registration. They specifically warn you about keeping the password safe. Many people do not heed this warning and may end up in trouble.
• Like in real life, this one can open all your account locks
• Another mistake people make is that they keep using their master key to login all the time.

ACTIVE KEY:

• This is the key you use for financial transactions eg sending steem/sbd, powering up or giving a 3rd party app like steemvoter access to your account.

POSTING KEY:

• This is the most frequently used key.
• Its used for posting and reading articles on Steemit, busy.org, zappl, etc.

MEMO KEY:

• Memo key is used for creating and reading memo
• Its use may not be that obvious because most memos are public. But if you want to create and read hidden memos, then this key comes in handy.

To access the keys; GOTO WALLETS--->>PERMISSIONS--->>SHOW KEY--->>COPY KEY

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HOW TO KEEP PASSWORDS SAFE:

Once you have logged in the first time with your master key, pls keep it secure by copying it down somewhere safe and offline.

Use it to gain access and retrieve all other passwords/keys.

Write them down and store offline.

It is suggested that you write them down in 2/3 good novels or books that you love so much and you never ever bring them out in the open.

Do not share with anybody.

This is your one real secret.

Keep it in unless you are writing a will or something.

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2. AVOID PHISHING SCAMS

• Who are phishers?

• These are people that try to use dubious means to gain access into your account by creating dummy sites asking for your passwords.
• They clone the original site in terms of front-end and website address.
• Eg https://steemit.com may now become https://stemmit.com
• If you are not careful, you may not notice the difference.
• Once you put in your passwords or keys, they then use it to access your account and leave you at $0.00 SBD and STEEM.

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WAYS TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM PHISHERS

Do not click links from unknown sources

Of recent some of them have been posing on Steemit.chat as popular steemians asking you to click links for certain unreasonably high rewards.

Avoid these kinds of people.

I have seen where they actually cleaned out someone's SBD because of that.

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3. AVOID UNKNOWN ADS

• Even when you are visiting other sites apart from Steemit or its sister sites
• These days there are usually baseline ads on most websites.
• The most annoying one is the pop-up ads.
• DO NOT CLICK, no matter the bait.
  

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WAYS TO AVOID AD

The easiest way right now is to use Brave Browser to protect your phone/tablet/computer from ads.

This reduces the chanes that you will click an ad to zero because they block all ads.

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4. SAVE YOUR SBD/STEEM OR POWER-UP

Saving is an awesome way to keep your liquid assets safe. You know why? It takes 3.5days to withdraw a savings. So even if a hacker accesses your account, he/she cannot utilize it. If he/she attempts to withdraw it, you will be notified in your memo which will keep you informed.

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HOW TO SAVE

Just click wallets--->>SBD/STEEM--->>TRANSFER TO SAVINGS.

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HOW TO POWER-UP

Just click wallets--->>SBD/STEEM--->>POWER UP

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5. INCASE YOU HAVE LOST YOUR PASSWORD/OR SOMEONE CHANGED IT.

• Then make sure you have your master password.
• WIthout your master password your Steemit account is gone forever.
• If someone changed it, you can recover your account within 30 days of the change.

GOTO WALLETS--->>PASSWORDS--->>RECOVER ACCOUNT

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I hope this tutorial was helpful for you. Keep your steemit account as safe as possible. Cheers!

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Posted on Utopian.io - Rewarding Open Source Contributors

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