

Vault12 addresses all of these scenarios by providing an easy-to-use back up and retrieval mechanism for passphrases, seedphrases, and shards.įor a software wallet to be secure, the application has to be built without security flaws, the operating system hosting the application has to be hardened (configured to reduce the likelihood of successful attacks), and both the application and the operating system must be kept patched to address any newly-emergent security flaws. Similarly, another option provided by Trezor is to use Shamir's Secret Sharing - but the same responsibility exists - you must back up the shards. For this reason, Trezor recommends using a BIP39 passphrase if you think that you are at risk of physical attacks however, you must still BACK UP both the passphrase and seed phrase.


No matter which hardware security setup you use, hardware attacks are still possible. This is why specialized secure hardware exists - the smaller the set of tasks that a device performs, the smaller the "attack surface," and the less likely that bad actors can find a way to compromise its security. Not only is the wallet application itself susceptible to attack, but the operating system of the host computer, and even the security of the hardware that runs the operating system can be the target of attack. However, a potential threat emerges that is present in all applications: software is hard to keep secure. Most cryptocurrency wallets on the market today are software wallets running on computer systems that are connected to the Internet, and this makes sense - the blockchain itself is software, and if you want to conveniently interact with it, a few mouse clicks in a software wallet can quickly execute a transaction.
