After months of stalling, I finally spent an entire day going through all of my apps, wallets, accounts, etc. to verify and strengthen my passwords and keys. Up until today, I have had very weak security on most of my accounts as I have used the same password for the last eight years or so. Now I have gone through and added two-factor security to numerous accounts and auto generated strong passwords to use.

The most painstaking part of my day was not writing down the 12-24 word seed phrases from different crypto wallets. Instead, it was the painstaking action of copying down the hundreds of letters and numbers that culminate in our Hive keys. Seeing that I have three accounts that I manage now on Hive, you can imagine how long it took me to write down my active, posting, memo and owner keys along with my password strings... Yes a few hours.

Now that I have all that done, I finally have some peace of mind that is not dependent on my laptop staying in function and storing my passwords there. Call me old fashioned, but there is nothing like a hard copy backup to establish that peace of mind.

Why Make Backups?

Well if you are as fortunate as I have been regarding the health of my laptop, it becomes easy to forget that you are one coffee spill or drop off the couch away from losing your computer. Now of course, there is always the chance that your hard drive can be restored and recovered after damages, but do you really want to run that risk?

I'm not moving big funds around, but if you are someone who has a ton of money (or anyone really), you don't want to be in a position where a mistake can cost you access to all of your funds.

If your Hive keys are stored on your desktop and you lose that file, you're pretty much screwed. That old saying of "not your keys, not your crypto" is a dual edged sword for sure. If you aren't careful to store those keys in numerous places and ensure the safety and protection of them, you are one catastrophe away from never having access to that wallet again; we are decentralized and nobody will be there to help you recover it.

Examples

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/technology/bitcoin-passwords-wallets-fortunes.html

This article shows the devastation of getting locked out of your cryptocurrency because you were not careful enough to store your keys safely.

https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoiner-loses-password-to-7002-bitcoins-worth-240-million/

This one is just devastating. A German programmer lost access to over 7,000 Bitcoins because he stored the keys on a hard drive that he lost. He actually had a hard copy on paper that he lost as well. This just emphasizes the importance of not only storing your keys on paper, but also storing it in numerous locations. You never know if that five minutes you spend writing it down will result in millions of dollars being saved in the future.

Two Factor Authentication

Though it can be annoying to constantly have to type in a few numbers every time you want to log onto something, the concept of two factor authentication is a real blessing for security purposes. If say your email password is compromised, hackers would still have to find a way to generate that pesky little number from your authenticator app in order to break through and access your messages.

Security in a sense is a lot of hassle and burden until it is needed. Nobody likes wasting time finding information for logins or resetting passwords until there is a time when doing that will either save your money or save your personal information.

Parting Words

I really recommend doing what I did today to ensure the peace of mind for your information and for your money. Taking a few hours here might save you big time stress in the future, you really never know until the time comes that it is needed. Do yourself a favor and become certain about your logins and security measures; you'll thank yourself later on.

@mariosfame gif once again, I love it

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