20.8 Ethereum stolen from a user and he has no idea on how it happened

A user on r/Ethereum on reddit has posted about losing all of his life savings. He said he woke up and got a notification from MyEtherWallet on his phone telling him 20.8 Ether were moved out of his wallet three hours ago.

While many feel that was a hack, most of the times, the user usually gives away his mnemonic phrase and due to this very reason, not even something like a hardware wallet can protect you.

Another reason behind this could be the new hacking vector in DeFi. In this case, not even a well-protected hardware wallet would not safe you if you are careful or aware.

So how to avoid such hacks? Well, for one, do not ever give away your mnemonic phrase even if the website looks legit. To check your balance, you can simply paste the address in blockchain explorer. You don’t need private keys to see how much money you got.

Also, make sure to use a temporary wallet while interacting with smart contracts. Create multiple on MyEtherWallet or MyCrypto easily. So, keep majority of your money on hardware crypto wallet that is never used on DeFi portals. Do not do any interaction with any website other than official one.

Having multiple wallets also help. It is not wise to keep your eggs, which in this is crypto, in one basket. Have four wallets and distribute your funds. This way, you would not loose all of your money in case one gets hacked.