Is Your Hardware Wallet Setup Actually Secure? Take the Free Security Check
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Owning a hardware wallet is a good start. It means your private key is not sitting on a server somewhere, and it is not in a hot wallet that can be drained by malware. But owning the device is only part of the equation. How you set it up, store the backup, and use it on an ongoing basis can make just as much difference to whether your crypto is actually safe.
I built a free security check to help people figure out where their actual gaps are, not just whether they own a wallet.
Take the free hardware wallet security check
The mistakes I see most often
A common pattern I see in r/Cold_Wallets: someone posts after losing funds or having a close call, and when you dig into what happened, it almost never comes down to the wallet itself being hacked. It comes down to one of a handful of setup or behavior mistakes that are completely preventable.
Seed phrase stored in a photo, email, or cloud note. This is probably the single most common critical mistake. If your seed phrase is in iCloud Photos, a Google Drive folder, a Gmail draft, or your password manager, anyone who gets access to that account owns your crypto. The whole point of a hardware wallet is that the private key never touches the internet. Storing the seed digitally undoes that entirely.
One paper backup stored next to the device. If someone breaks in, they get both. If there is a fire, both are gone. One copy in the same location as the wallet is not a backup in any meaningful sense.
Never tested the backup. Most people have not actually verified their seed phrase works. They wrote it down during setup and assumed it was fine. A backup that has never been tested might have a transcription error, might be on paper that has faded or got wet, or might restore to the wrong wallet because of an incorrect word. Testing takes about 15 minutes and is the only way to know you actually have a working backup.
Bought from Amazon or a third-party reseller. Hardware wallets should always be bought directly from the manufacturer. A device that went through a reseller could have been tampered with before it reached you. There are documented cases of pre-compromised devices sold through Amazon and other marketplaces. Buying new and sealed direct from the manufacturer removes that risk entirely.
Short or obvious PIN. A 4-digit PIN on a lost or stolen device offers very little protection. Most wallets wipe or lock after repeated wrong attempts, but a longer PIN means the attacker gets fewer attempts at a usable number before it triggers. 8 digits or more is the right target.
What the security check covers
The quiz asks about the things above and a few more: whether you use a seedless wallet like Tangem and how you handle the card backups, whether you would recognize a phishing attempt asking for your seed phrase, whether your crypto holdings are private, and whether there is any inheritance plan in place.
It handles both seed-phrase wallets (Ledger, Trezor, most of the market) and seedless wallets (Tangem and similar). The questions branch depending on which type you have, so you only see the questions that apply to your setup.
At the end you get a score from 0 to 100 with a grade: Fortress, Solid, Some Gaps, or At Risk. You also get a list of what you are doing right and a prioritised list of the specific things to fix, each with a link to a relevant guide. If there is a critical issue, a red banner flags it at the top of the results regardless of what the score is. Critical issues are things like a digital seed backup or a used/second-hand device - one bad habit can undermine everything else in your setup, so those get called out separately.
Who should take it
If you have been using a hardware wallet for a while and think your setup is solid, take it anyway. Most people in that position are solid on the big things but have one or two gaps they have not thought about. The backup test is the most common one - the majority of people who have never tried to restore from their seed phrase simply do not know whether it works. The second most common gap is a single-copy backup with no geographic separation from the device.
If you are new to cold storage, take it after you have finished the initial setup. It will show you what to go back and fix before you rely on the wallet for real holdings.
The quiz also covers exchange users and hot wallet users. If you are not in cold storage yet, the score still reflects how well you are protecting what you have, and the results will tell you directly whether moving to cold storage should be your next step.
No email, no account, no data sent anywhere. You get a shareable result at the end if you want to compare with someone else or post it.