“Cybersecurity is becoming as vital as physical” — these were the words from our Head of Research Sergey Prilutskiy little more than a week ago. Since then on the evening of July 4, Russian Internet users realized that the search engine Yandex has been indexing a surprising array of information stored on Google Docs, including files containing passwords, credit card numbers, and corporate documents. This is why we decided to publish this article about data protection.

People believe in the myth that Blockchain is absolutely safe and impossible to break. Truly, it is safer, but computers still have the same weaknesses as before. Smartz platform does everything possible to protect your information, we don’t store your private keys and data. Here is what you should do to prevent your data from being stolen.

1. Use Multisignature Wallets

When creating a multisig wallet, you can define how many signatures there should be in total, and how many of them should be required to make a transaction. The most commonly created wallet-type is a 2-of-3 wallet, meaning there are a total of three signatures, of which two are needed to sign a transaction. Every time you want to make a transaction, you have to initiate the transaction with one device (for example by scanning a QR code on your phone), then review and confirm the transaction on your other device. It’s not possible to make a transaction with only one device, so if your phone or computer is hacked, you won’t lose your money. If you lose or break your computer or phone, you can recover your coins with the paper wallet and the other wallet you still have. If the paper wallet gets stolen, the thief does not gain access to your coins (due to the multisig requirement).

2. Use VPN

The encapsulated and encrypted private tunnel linking you to your VPN service and then to the world at large effectively hides your identity and activities from ISPs, public Wi-Fi networks, and any third parties that might be attempting to listen in. Even if someone succeeds in intercepting your data packets, the strong encryption poses a serious obstacle to their being able to make any sense out of it.

Beyond this, a VPN can also mask your location, as the remote access servers deployed by your service provider may be located anywhere across the globe — and it’s the IP addresses of these systems that are substituted for yours.

3. Anti-malware protection is a must

Malware is a serious issue plaguing many a computer user, and it’s known for cropping up in inconspicuous places, unbeknownst to users. Anti-malware protection is essential for laying a foundation of security for your devices. Malware is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer without your consent. Malware includes computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, spyware, scareware and more. It can be present on websites and emails, or hidden in downloadable files, photos, videos, freeware or shareware. Updating your OS and software will protect your data in most cases. To get better protection for your system, run a good anti-virus protection program, do periodic scans for spyware, avoid clicking on suspicious email links or websites. Also, a good practical solution is to use one browser for common activity: email, social networks, etc, and another one, with strict settings, for critical services.

4. Protect your passwords

Don’t write them down. Resist the temptation to hide passwords under your keyboard, post them on your monitor or use Google Docs to store them. Stories about hackers getting passwords by dumpster-diving and “shoulder-surfing” are absolutely real. One way to store and remember passwords securely is to use a tool that stores your list of usernames and passwords in encrypted form. Some of these tools will even help by automatically filling in the information for you on certain websites.

5. Protecting your data is your duty

What’s more to say? Just like physically it is your duty to keep your data safe. Don’t rely on someone else!

We hope that you check all the points of this list as ‘done’. If not, start protecting your data today!