Protecting your keys
Validator Keys are very sensitive:
- if you lose them and your node crashes irreparably (i.e. you delete the virtual machine, your VPS provider deletes/loses it), you lose access to that node, you won't be able to bring it back up online and will thus stop earning money with it
- if someone steals them and maliciously uses them in the Elrond network, they can engage in bad behavior such as double-signing, produce bad blocks, inject fake transactions, mint new coins, etc. - all of those actions are slashable, meaning you can lose your EGLD stake - all 2500!
Wallet Keys are extremely sensitive because:
- if you lose the keys, you can't recover your stake or claim your rewards -> you lose all the money
- if someone steals your keys, they can send an unstake transaction from it and claim the EGLD -> the bad guys steal your money
How to protect them:
- make multiple safe backups of the private keys & files
- paper
- hardware
- encrypted physical storage
- distributed cloud storage, etc
- some hints
tip
Wallet Keys are not required on host running the Node. Store them on a different location.
Secure your Elrond node
- no ports should open in the firewall
- don't run the node as
root
- use encryption, all other measures
- some hints