Crypto-news: $1.1 billion in cryptocurrency has been stolen in 2018! Take care, you could be next.

Hi fellow Steemians!

This is a sad news but one that you should all be aware of.

It's being reported that $1.1 billion worth of cryptocurency was stolen in the first half of 2018! Even worse, apparently it was pretty easy to steal them, according to cybersecurity company Carbon Black.

They way these criminals do it is they use the dark web to facilitate large-scale crypto theft. There are estimated to be 12,000 market places and 34,000 offerings related to cryptotheft for hackers to choose from.

It's extremely easy to conduct these thefts, even if you don't have any tech skill to commit cybercrimes like ransomware. You simply have to purchase the malware.

So what can you do?

I'll be honest, I'm not an expert in this area. But here are some rules that I try to follow.

1. Use well-known exchanges - Often times, I think these thefts occur from exchanges with weak protection. I mean, the larger ones must be investing more in their security right?

2. Keep you password complicated and off site - Try and create a long password (not as extreme as Steemit but still long enough and complicated enough that it'll be difficult to predict. Also keep a hard copy of it and don't store it on your computer that you use for crypto trading. If the hacker gets it through ransomware or malware, then you have no chance of recovering it.

3. If possible, try and use a separate computer for crypto-trading - As mentioned, your computer may be more susceptible to hacks if you trade crypto on it. Try and separate your crypto activities from your main computer as you may get affected by ransomware and you don't want to lose EVERYTHING right?

4. Only access crypto-trading sites at home - public WiFi is insecure so never use that to trade crypto. Don't even use your mobile network just to be safe. Always password protect your WiFi and use that only. Better yet, just use LAN.

Here are some of my tips (sorry it's not very helpful).

Source: CNBC