How Onion Routing Can Save Your Crypto

Note : This article is written for Android users. I will update it when I find appropriate solutions for other platforms.

In this article I will explain how the usage of Onion routing can save the cryptocurrency you own in your wallet.

Mt.Gox and Maple change hacks has proved that owning cryptocurrencies on an exchange is not safe since the whole infrastructure can be hacked/ransacked. The only other alternative we have is to store the cryptocurrencies in a wallet.

Even-though we have wallets like Coinbase with secure infrastructure(No known hacks till now), there is still one possible way in which a hacker can still have access to your cryptocurrencies i.e by installing a Keylogger.

Keylogger is a bug that is planted on the host computer to log all the keystrokes. Now, the most secure feature of cryptocurrency which is the unique private key that protects your account can be logged and the hacker can have access to all your crypto. Even-though Blockchains are secure, user interfaces are still susceptible to attacks.

Now I will provide a solution for this problem.

Solution:

1. The user must first install the Orbot: Proxy with Tor , which is an onion router for Android.
2. After installation, Tap on start button.

Tap on Start

3. Tap on the settings icon as highlighted.

Tap on settings icon

4. Select Coinbase from the app list. I assume that you have installed Coinbase or any relevant wallet.

Select Coinbase app

5. Now tap on Coinbase icon to open the app which now uses Tor network.

The advantage of using Tor/Onion network is that it is multilayered and always changes to a new identity within some minutes(or can be manually changed by the user). Thus, it is very difficult for the hacker to plant a bug on your device and log your private key.

The following quote was my motivation for this article:

“Networks must be organized according to rules. They require Rulers to enforce these rules. Against cheaters.”~Naval Ravikant.

Thank you for reading my article.

Note:This article comes under research work done at Wright State University’s SMART Lab under the guidance of Dr. Yong Pei.

Wright State University: https://www.wright.edu/ Department of Computer Science and Engineering : https://www.wright.edu/degrees-and-programs/profile/computer-science Dr. Yong Pei : https://people.wright.edu/yong.pei

If you have any questions, please feel free to send me an email. You can also contact me via Linkedin. You can also follow me on Twitter.

In order to get started with Blockchain read my article published on Hackernoon