How to protect yourself from cryptocurrency fraud

Like traditional money, criminals are targeting the cryptocurrency market. With the equivalent of millions of pounds being stolen from cryptocurrency holdings each year, this is a very lucrative market.

Anyone entering the cryptocurrency market must take steps to avoid becoming a victim of theft. This includes:

• Keeping private keys safe and secret. Whoever knows your private key can access and spend/move your cryptocurrency.
• Keeping your wealth private. This will make you less likely to become the victim of a hack, extortion or ransom attack.
• Practising good online security practices (e.g. password management, protection from viruses and malware, not clicking on dodgy links, etc.)
• Understanding that Exchanges are not secure and, as such, have become a particular target of crypto thieves.
• Not storing too much in desktop or mobile wallets as these are susceptible to hackers.
• Using a paper wallet (offline wallet). Because they are offline, they are less vulnerable to attacks. There are paper wallet generators to help you to do this.
• Using a hardware wallet. These are more secure than desktop or mobile wallets (hot wallets) and are only accessible with your private key.
• Splitting your wealth into different wallets to reduce the damage should your wallet become vulnerable.
• Being wary of any offers to buy your crypto assets at way over the market price. There are examples of such transactions taking place face-to-face with sellers coerced into making the transfer without payment. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.