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Seed phrase saved involuntarily: text suggestions on smartphones dangerous for crypto users

 


Seed phrases are a random combination of words from the Bitcoin Improvement Protocol (BIP) list 39. This list specifies 2048 words that are rolled together to form a long password. This provides strong protection against unauthorized access to a user's crypto holdings. But what happens when your smartphone remembers the words and lists them in the suggested words once you access your digital wallet?


Andre is a 33-year-old IT professional from Germany and recently posted on the r/CryptoCurrency subreddit that he's discovered that his smartphone suggests the entire recovery seed phrase as soon as he types the first word.


He warned Reddit users and crypto enthusiasts in his post that hackers could use this feature to steal a user's money simply by typing the first word from the BIP39 list:


"It's pretty easy to attack with it. All you have to do is pick up a phone, go to any chat app and type any word from the BIP39 list. Then you just have to see what the phone suggests."

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Andre, who goes by the nickname u/Divinux on Reddit, told how shocked he was when he first saw his phone prompting the 12-24 word seed phrase directly. "At first I was very surprised. The first few words could be a coincidence, right?"


Being tech-savvy, the German crypto investor was able to reproduce the scenario, and his phone was actually able to accurately suggest the seed phrases. He immediately recognized the impact that could have if the phone fell into the wrong hands. "So I figured I should tell people that. I'm sure other people put their seed phrase into their smartphones too."


Andre's experiments found that Google's GBoard is the safest here, as the software doesn't suggest every word in the correct order. Microsoft's Swiftkey keyboard app, however, suggested the seed phrase in its entirety right after the first word. The Samsung keyboard can also predict words when the Auto Replace and Suggest Text Correction features are enabled.


Andre first came into contact with cryptocurrencies in 2015. Back then, he lost interest pretty quickly until he realized that he could use Bitcoin ( BTC ) and other cryptocurrencies to buy goods and services. Its investment strategy consists of buying and staking BTC and altcoins like Terra ( LUNA ), Algorand ( ALGO ) and Tezos ( XTZ ). “Then I use the average cost effect on BTC if it rises sharply.” The IT expert also likes to develop his own coins and tokens as a hobby.


According to Andre, to protect yourself from hacks, you should keep significant and long-term holdings in a hardware wallet. His advice to Reddit users around the world: "If you don't have the private keys, you don't effectively own the coins. Do your own research, don't panic at the last minute, never invest more money than you can afford to lose, double check always the address you send something to, always send a small amount first and disable your PMs in settings." Finally he said:


"Do yourself a favor and prevent this by clearing your text prediction cache."


Blockchain security firm PeckShield has warned the crypto community about some phishing websites that have specifically targeted users of the Web3 lifestyle app STEPN.


PechShield has discovered that hackers have smuggled in a fake MetaMask browser plugin that allows them to steal seed phrases from unsuspecting STEPN users.


Having the seed phrase also gives you complete control over the user's cryptocurrencies via the STEPN dashboard.

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