How to protect yourself from the recent spate of 'crypto muggings'

cointelegraph.com:

There has been a spate of “crypto muggings” in London recently, with thieves threatening crypto holders with violence unless they transfer over their digital currencies held in mobile phone wallets or on crypto exchanges.

As detailed by The Guardian UK, crime reports from the City of London police detail how thousands of dollars worth of crypto has been stolen by thugs in person. One victim said their phone had been pick-pocketed while out drinking and they later realized over $12,000 worth of Ethereum (ETH) had been siphoned from their Crypto.com account. The victims believes the thieves witnessed them type in their account pin.

Another victim was approached by a group offering to sell him cocaine and after moving to another location to buy the drugs, the person was held against a wall whilst the gang accessed his phone and crypto account using facial verification, transferring over $7,000 worth of Ripple (XRP) to their own wallets.

This is an increasingly common variation on what is termed a “$5 wrench attack”.

As blockchain transactions are irreversible and most methods of cryptocurrency storage place responsibility for security of the assets with the individual who owns them, Cointelegraph spoke with blockchain security firm BlockSec who shared the following tips on how to protect crypto from a mugging:

BlockSec also suggested a way to trick thieves if a crypto user is mugged, saying some smart phones can have different logins which can hide certain applications such as Huawei’s “PrivateSpace” feature:

Samsung phones have a similar feature called a “secure folder” which can be used to hide all your crypto applications behind a PIN or password and the folder itself can also be hidden from the home screen.

On Apple iPhones