1

Bitcoin Security Concerns –What are the Best Practices?

Colbert Low, Founder of BTCfuture.biz

2 August 2014, 10am. Saturday. (Malaysia time)

Hosted by KCLau.com Online Seminar (Webinar)

2

Who is Colbert Low?

- Featured on Personal Money magazine (Malaysia) 2 times - May 2013 / Feb 2014;

- Featured on Business Times Singapore in Year 2013 ;

- Featured on Malay Mail Online Malaysia in Year 2014 ;

- Member of BitAngels [www.BitAngels.co ] World’s first distributed veteran entrepreneur and angel Bitcoin investor group ;

- Country Lead for BitX Malaysia, bitcoin wallet and exchange at www.BitX.co

3

Bitcoin Meetups in Malaysia – KL and Penang.

- Over 200 members on our Telegram Bitcoin chat groups (Install the Telegram app and add me at +6012 3038472)

Subscribe to our newsletter at http://bitcoinmalaysia.com/

4

Media and Bitcoin Mining Hardware

THE EDGE paper

PERSONAL MONEY –Feb 2014

5

Bitcoin in the News

6

TOPICS

- Basics of Bitcoin - what is it?

- Types of Bitcoin wallets

- The Importance of security updates

- How to secure your Operating System

- How to back up your Bitcoin Wallet

7

What is Bitcoin?

- Bitcoin or also known as “btc” or XBT, is a hybrid protocol.

a. Magic internet money, or crypto-currency.

b. Global Payment System (any country)

8

What is Bitcoin?

** Decentralized peer-to-peer (P2P) system. NO CENTRAL SERVERS.

* Bitcoin servers ran by Bitcoin Miners (Bitcoin Nodes)

* No central server unlike other payment systems like Paypal, eGold, Liberty Reserve, etc.

* Uses SHA-256 as the underlying cryptographic hash function.

* More secure. Protected from DDOS attacks.

http://getaddr.bitnodes.io/39/

- As of 19 August 2013, there's about 11.57 million BTC out there. Maximum circulation is about 21 million (reached in 2140).

http://bitcoincharts.com/

9

What is Bitcoin?

- Bitcoin (BTC) is divisible into 8 decimals.

Low transaction fees / network fee of 0.005 BTC

Lower transaction fees for merchants – > Compare:

Credit cards 2-3% or Paypal (2.9% + RM2.00 MYR onwards.)

Bitpay.com Bitcoin Payment Processor : 1%

Borderless

Faster

10

Types of Bitcoin wallets

1. Paper btc wallets

2. Hardware based btc wallets

3. PC based btc wallets

4. Online or web based btc wallets

5. Mobile btc wallets (iOS, Android)

11

Types of Bitcoin wallets

1. Paper btc wallets

- Known as cold storage and the most secure way to lock up your

bitcoins.

- Paper wallets can be used to store bitcoins offline in non-digital

format. Using securely generated paper wallets significantly decreases

the chances of your bitcoins being stolen by hackers or computer

viruses. See https://bitcoinpaperwallet.com/

12

Types of Bitcoin wallets

2. Hardware based btc wallets

A hardware wallet is a device that stores a part of a user's wallet

securely in mostly-offline hardware.

http://www.bitcointrezor.com

13

Types of Bitcoin wallets

3. PC based btc wallets

Bitcoin Core or Bitcoin QT;

Multibit ;

Armory.

Electrum.org

14

Types of Bitcoin wallets

4. Online or web based btc wallets

BitX Malaysia Bitcoin Exchange : http://www.bitx.my/

* ‘deep freeze’ storage.

* 2FA or Two-Factor Authentication.

* btc deposit insurance?

15

Types of Bitcoin wallets

5. Mobile btc wallets (iOS, Android)

https://mycelium.com = Allows for private key Backup to your

email.

16

The Importance of security updates

Massive 1170 Bitcoin Hack Victim Offers Bounty for Return

Earlier in the day on July 11th, Bitcointalk user “klee” reported that he was hacked, losing him approximately 1170 Bitcoins. This comes to an equivalent of more than $700,000 USD (about MYR 2.24 Million) at the time this article was written.

https://kbve.com/crypto/2014/07/11/massive-1170-bitcoin-hack-victim-offers-bounty-for-return/

Androklis Polymenis

17

The Importance of security updates

* Applying software updates is one of the most important things you can do with your computer or phone.

* In fact, if you don’t do it, you’re very likely going to get some kind of malware in your system and even get hijacked.

18

How to secure your Operating System

* PC firewall - Comodo* Antivirus – AVG, Kaspersky or Bitdefender* Lastpass.com – password manager.

* VPN client (virtual private network) –See http://www.vpngate.net - VPN Gate Academic Experiment Project is an online service as an academic research at Graduate School of University of Tsukuba, Japan

* Clean browser – Firefox (plugins) , Chrome (chrome browser extension)

19

How to back up your Bitcoin Wallet

* PC based wallets - Save the wallet in your PC (windows, Mac, linux)

* Write down the btc private key (pretty long) – eg : 5HpHagT65TZzG1PH3CSu63k8DbpvD8s5ip4nEB3kEsreAbuatmU

A btc private key is a secret code which allows the user to prove his ownership of his Bitcoins. Every Bitcoin address has a matching private key, which is saved in the wallet file of the person who owns the balance. The private key is mathematically related to the Bitcoin address, and is designed so that the Bitcoin address can be calculated from the private key, but importantly, the same cannot be done in reverse.

* Mycelium – BIP38 encrypted paper wallet. Send to your email.

20

Read:

https://bitcointalk.org - Forum (ninjaboon)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin - Basics

https://www.weusecoins.com - Basics

http://bitcoinity.org/markets – BTC charts

http://coinmade.org - bitcoin merchant directory

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/ - News

http://bitcoinmagazine.com - News

21

The END. Thank you!

Colbert Lau, Founder of BTC Future

Email: admin@bitcoinmalaysia.com

www.bitcoinmalaysia.comwww.bitx.co

https://www.facebook.com/BTCMalaysia

WhatsApp: +6012 3038472

Scan my Vcard above!