Is Your Smartphone The Smartest Way To Secure Cryptocurrency?

Is Your Smartphone The Smartest Way To Secure Cryptocurrency?

Did you know the cryptocurrencies thefts and scams surged more than 400% in 2018 to $1.7 billion? Out of which, $950 million is from infrastructure services like wallets and cryptocurrency exchanges.
But what exactly is the way to secure your digital assets? Well, Samsung might have an answer for you.

According to the tech-giant, smartphones are the smartest way to secure cryptocurrencies. Explaining further, the company states that smartphone-based cryptocurrency wallets are a somewhat secure place to hold digital money. For storing the money on a long-term basis, Samsung recommended creating several back-ups of the private associated with crypto wallets.
But are smartphones really secure? Or, is it just another hype cycle? Let’s find out.

Why Do Smartphone Wallets Have An Edge?
Smartphone wallet such as Jaxx and blockchain, are the primary applications used by the majority of cryptocurrency users to send and receive payments with digital assets.

In addition, according to Joel Snyder, a senior IT consultant explained that smartphones are more secure than laptops and other devices because of the presence of the Trusted Execution Environment (TEE).

Many smartphones have a native environment called TEE, which functions as a separate runtime environment with its own memory and storage. Therefore, even the operating system like Android cannot access TEE and potentially initiate changes in its memory.

If there’s a hacking attack or a security breach, hackers cannot possibly break into the TEE and attempt to steal data such as the private keys of a crypto wallet as the TEE exists entirely independent of the device.

However, despite the increased security provided with TEE, smartphones are not totally immune to attacks. Yes, having a TEE is certainly preferable, but there are still some vectors of attack that can occur elsewhere in the software stack.
Preferred Method to Store Private Keys
In addition to online storage, you must also store private keys offline to maximize security. This means that the keys must not reside on a device that is regularly connected to the Internet.

Moreover, TEE hardware is not available on desktops and laptop, which means that private keys stored in these devices can be easily compromised.

Also, with smartphone wallets, a novice programmer may make the mistake of designing a digital wallet that stores private keys on the smartphone’s hard drive, thus making it vulnerable to hackers. In addition, the wallets themselves may be deliberately infected with malware.

Ending note: Clearly, the smartphone wallets will take a toll on this new age of trading, spending and investing in cryptocurrencies. These apps make trading easy, and for traders, TEE based smartphone is an obvious choice, since it offers more security than a PC or Mac. However, before you choose a digital wallet, take some time to learn about digital wallets.

So, what is your preference? A smartphone-based wallet or hardware wallet? If you prefer any other medium, don’t forget to share it with us in the comment section below.

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