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In a blog post in July, a Samsung author said that smartphone-based cryptocurrency portfolios have the "edge". The next Web asked security experts their opinions, and not entirely
Samsung suggested that "smartphones have the best security for blockchain and cryptocurrency". The author, Joel Snyder, puts it on smartphones (and Samsung) Trusted Execution Environments (TEE). Snyder explained:
The TEE is a separate execution environment with memory and persistent memory, completely isolated from the rest of the device.
Smartphones are better than laptops
If a portfolio executes the right "trustlets" to handle security keys, "security is very strict," says Snyder. Laptops do not manage TEEs, so it is claimed that compared to smartphones, smartphones are a better choice.
The Next Web spoke with a handful of experts. This includes the Bitcoin developer 0 0 Jameson Lopp who agrees that the TEEs offer security benefits, but that attacks can occur elsewhere in the software stack. Lopp states:
Malware can affect other critical components of the operation of the wallet when creating a transaction, resulting in sending funds to an attacker's address.
Lopp would retain only as much cryptocurrency in a single portfolio of signature smartphones Store in a conventional money portfolio.
Matthew Green, a professor of cryptography by Johns Hopkins, agrees that TEEs are a "good thing" and make hacker jobs harder. "But when an application submits a request to a" send Bitcoin to a specific person, "the TEE protects the keys, but sophisticated malware may be able to jeopardize the application. :
Even obvious countermeasures such as requiring a password only help a little, since sophisticated malware can simply wait for you to enter the password to make a legitimate transaction.
TEE quality can be a problem, the security problems have also been identified in those developed by Qualcomm and Trustzone.
Smartphones, constantly connected to Wi-Fi networks, also increase the risks. 
The portfolios hardware are the best
security expert F-Secure Mikko Hyppönen also said The Next Web Hard Fork that smartphones are practical for trading and those with TEE they would be "clearly" better than a PC or Mac. To conserve large amounts of cryptocurrency, you are advised to use a specialized hardware portfolio in cryptocurrency, as well as Lopp.
Snyder, in the blog post Samsung, recognizes that the hardware portfolios are better for "long term cold storage (offline)" but lack practicalities, so they are "poorly adapted for frequent use."
In summary, smartphones running TEEs are better for storing cryptocurrencies than laptops, PCs or Macs. For long-term or high-value storage, cryptocurrency hardware portfolios are definitely the best solution.
How do you store cryptocurrencies and protect your devices? Which method do you think is the best?
Images courtesy of Shutterstock
