Predictive typing can guess your crypto private keys: Here’s how to turn it off

Text prediction makes it easy for cybercriminals to attack you, and steal your crypto wallet.

Crypto currencies do give a high rate of returns, but are equally susceptible to cyber attacks. (Photo Credit: Pixabay)

Predictive typing can guess your cryptocurrency wallet’s private keys, making your phone prone to cyber-attacks. A Reddit user that goes by the name Tin has posted a thread on Reddit explaining how predictive typing can make you lose access to your crypto wallet.

A crypto wallet stores your crypto assets such as your coins and non-fungible-tokens (NFTs). If you create an online wallet on your phone, you’d be required to re-enter your entire seed—the crypto equivalent of a password. But, if you have predictive typing enabled on your phone it will remember your used words and suggest the second word as you type out the first one, especially if it’s a word you do not commonly use.

Text prediction makes it easy for (cybercriminals) to attack you, and steal your crypto wallet. “They could get their hands on your phone, start any chat app, start typing any words of the BIP39 list, and see what the phone suggests,” the Reddit user explained. BIP39 is a group of easy words to remember, this serves as a backup to remember your private keys, in case you happen to lose it.

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To prevent hackers from accessing your crypto wallets via predictive text, users should clear their predictive type cache. Here’s how to do it.