Regular Backup Guide

Note: Make sure to read the basic backup guide first.

The most common Security Blanket backup strategy to protect your critical credentials and devices, in case of a disaster.

  • Restores access to your TLAs and/or Devices under the following scenarios:
    • All Basic Backup Scenarios plus,
    • Lost credentials to your devices, i.e. forgetting your laptop password. Lookup the password in the security blanket.
    • Restoring high value devices, i.e. a Crypto Hardware Wallet backup. Simply lookup the seed phrase in the security blanket.
  • Blankets are composed of TLA, Tool, and Device cards.
  • Good for contacts with physical access to your devices to access them on your behalf if you are unavailable. Good for self-preservation in spite of human fallibility.

Steps

We recommend reading the getting started guide first.

  1. Create your digital map as described in the getting started guide. Double check that you can access all of your accounts from your TLAs, otherwise this will only be a partial backup in the case of a remote restore scenario.

  2. Carefully review the TLAs and ensure each of them have a remote restore method that does not rely on any access to a device card. Typically, most TLAs have a recovery method that uses “backup codes” for this purpose.

  3. If any tools are needed to access a TLA, ensure the tool can be accessed via a remote restore method, or provide a recovery method for the TLA that does not depend on the Tool. Again, enabling “backup codes” can suffice.

  4. For every device card, make sure the descriptor and location are obvious for a trusted contact to be able to locate and operate.

  5. Count the number of cards you will need per blanket. Your blanket should include all of the TLAs you want to protect, all relevant tools needed to access TLAs, and all of your devices.

  6. Now determine the number of backups you want to make. As described in the security best practices:

    At a minimum, make a backup blanket for yourself to keep at home. This way you can restore your credentials in case of an emergency. It’s also a good practice to have a personal backup copy somewhere off-site, in case of a disaster at home. Lastly, having a trusted contact with a security blanket, can help restore your access when you are away and unable to access your other backups.

  7. Follow the rest of the getting started guide in distributing your blankets to your contacts and you should be good to go!