The most important immediate step is reviewing where copies of your seed phrases, private keys, and wallet backup files currently exist and ensuring none of them are stored in places that have internet access or are connected to cloud services. Many people created crypto wallets years ago and saved recovery information in places that felt secure at the time, including cloud storage services, email drafts, notes apps that sync automatically, or screenshots in a phone camera roll that backs up to the cloud. Any of these represent exposure points that should be addressed by moving that information to offline storage and deleting the cloud copies.

For ongoing protection, the principle of air-gapping is the most reliable defense available. Recovery work, seed phrase generation, and private key management should all happen on devices that are not connected to the internet during those processes. Hardware wallets, which keep private keys offline by design, provide a layer of protection that no software wallet on an internet-connected device can fully replicate. When using AI tools for any purpose related to crypto, limit your questions strictly to general concepts and never paste, upload, or describe specific recovery information in any conversation. If you successfully recover old funds, move them immediately to a fresh wallet whose seed phrase was generated on an offline device and has never touched an internet-connected environment. The threat landscape around crypto security is evolving as AI tools become more capable and more widely used, but the foundational defense has not changed: keep the keys offline, minimize trust in third parties, and treat seed phrase security as the single most important responsibility that comes with self-custody.