Concerns Raised On Wallet Security, What You Should Do

Please fol­low and like us:
Pin Share

Meta Plat­forms Inc, the par­ent of pop­u­lar social media plat­forms Face­book and Insta­gram, has recent­ly enabled users to post their non-fun­gi­ble tokens (NFTs) on these sites to show­case them online. How­ev­er, its deci­sion has raised ques­tions about data secu­ri­ty, giv­en its past data breaches. 

Meta announced that users could now con­nect their Meta­mask and Coin­base cryp­to wal­lets with Face­book and Insta­gram. Some cryp­to users raised doubts about how Meta might use the data gen­er­at­ed from post­ing NFTs.

While announc­ing the NFT fea­ture in a blog post, Meta, how­ev­er, said: “We col­lect and orga­nize pub­lic data from open blockchains, such as Ethereum, to pro­vide this fea­ture. From this pub­lic blockchain data, we can only iden­ti­fy which col­lectibles belong to col­lec­tors and cre­ators when they con­nect their third-par­ty wal­lets to Instagram.” 

Inter­est­ing­ly, in July, Meta announced clos­ing down its cryp­to wal­let ser­vice Novi, for­mer­ly Libra. 

It had devel­oped the wal­let to enable bor­der­less pay­ments through cryp­to and fiat cur­ren­cy, and decid­ed to wind up the project after draw­ing flake from the author­i­ties in many countries.

The com­pa­ny had also been in the news for let­ting third-par­ty access user data.

Meta’s Track Record Of Handling User Data

Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca, a now-defunct British polit­i­cal con­sul­tan­cy firm, which worked for the 2016 Trump cam­paign, was accused of har­vest­ing Facebook’s user data from a quiz app in 2015.

Christo­pher Wylie, a for­mer employ­ee of the UK firm, blew the whis­tle on the data breach. Wylie alleged that it used per­son­al data to make some 50 mil­lion ille­gal pro­files of people.

How­ev­er, Meta has set­tled the law­suit involv­ing Cam­bridge Analytica. 

Nonethe­less, it was not the only case con­cern­ing Meta’s data safety.

2021 Data Breach: In April 2021, Busi­ness Insid­er report­ed that a hack­ing forum post­ed the per­son­al data of 533 mil­lion Face­book users. Of the vic­tims, some 32 mil­lion were from the US, 11 mil­lion were from the UK, and six mil­lion were from India. 

Accord­ing to the report, the data, includ­ing phone num­bers, Face­book IDs, names, local­i­ties, birth­dates, and in some cas­es, email address­es, was post­ed online for free.

Concerns About Wallet Security

The cryp­to com­mu­ni­ty is doubt­ful about the secu­ri­ty and safe­ty of the wal­lets and the NFTs stored in them, cit­ing the past track record of Meta. For instance, one tweeple with the han­dle NPC-Picac said: “I don’t think entrust­ing dig­i­tal col­lectibles to con­nect to ‘Meta’ is in any way smart.”

Anoth­er cryp­to com­mu­ni­ty mem­ber was con­cerned about how Meta might use the data gen­er­at­ed from post­ing NFTs. He expressed con­cern that Meta might link the col­lect­ed pub­lic blockchain data with its exist­ing database.

 

How To Make Wallets Secure

Use two-step ver­i­fi­ca­tion if you use a cus­to­di­al wal­let like the Coin­base wal­let. Also, enable Google Duo or Google authen­ti­ca­tor on the Coin­base wal­let app. In the case of non-cus­to­di­al wal­lets, use mul­ti­sigs, mean­ing break down your pri­vate key and store them in dif­fer­ent loca­tions. You could also write them on paper or store them on offline stor­age devices. And always use a hard­ware wal­let for the best secu­ri­ty cover.

Aman­jot Mal­ho­tra, coun­try head at Bitay, a cryp­to exchange, said: “Although they are tech­ni­cal­ly con­nect­ed to the inter­net dur­ing a trans­ac­tion, the sign­ing of the trans­ac­tion by the pri­vate keys is done offline with­in the hard­ware wal­let itself before being sent online to the blockchain to be con­firmed. For this rea­son, even a mal­ware-infect­ed com­put­er or phone can’t access your funds when you’re using a non-cus­to­di­al hard­ware wallet.”

Om Malviya, Pres­i­dent of blockchain com­pa­ny Tezos India, said, “Dig­i­tal wal­lets are prone to phish­ing attacks so users need to be extra cau­tious while con­nect­ing on unknown dapps, sign­ing trans­ac­tions but still the pow­er lies with the user unlike cen­tral­ized exchanges. Ledger and oth­er hard­ware wal­let com­pa­nies are improv­ing on safe­ty and easy access for users.”



Source link

Please fol­low and like us:
Pin Share

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *