Skip to main content

Setup social recovery

note

The process of generating your social recovery shares is using an algorithm called Shamir's Secret Sharing. This algorithm allows you to combine any of the shares to get back to your original secret while giving contacts with fewer than the required number of shares NO information about your original secret. This is, in contrast, to simply cutting your original secret into multiple pieces and giving it to your contacts. If you do that, you reveal a part of your secret to each one, leaving you vulnerable to brute force attacks. This is not the case if you use our social recovery generation.

How to set up Social Recovery in AirGap Vault​

If you want to set up social recovery functionality for your secrets, follow these steps:

  • Select the specific wallet you are interested in setting social recovery.
  • Select the three dot at the top right corner and select secret management.
  • Select “Social Recovery”.
  • Read the brief explanation about social recovery.

On the next page you get a set of numbers.

  1. The number of secret shares: This number determines the amount of social contact you wish to maintain.
  1. The number of shares needed for recovery: This number determines the number of secret shares needed to successfully recover your secret.

For this example, we select three for the number of secret shares and two for the number of shares needed for recovery.

  • Keep these rules in mind.
  • press the next button
  • press the next button
  • press the next button
  • press the next button
  • press the continue button
  • Write down the first social recovery share.
  • Confirm the first social recovery share.
  • Click the “next” button and write the second social recovery share.
  • Confirm the second social recovery share.
  • Click the “next” button and write the third social recovery share.
  • Confirm the third social recovery share.
  • Click “Finish”.
  • Make sure you validate that you wrote everything down correctly by importing your newly created social recovery.
  • Now put each of the shares into a sealed envelope and securely distribute them among your trusted contacts

How to recover your secret with social recovery in AirGap Vault​

  • To recover your account from social recovery shares, open the AirGap vault and select the “social recovery” import method.
  • Click the lets start button.
  • Select the number of shares that are required for recovery and Click the Confirm button.
  • Give the social recovery share a name.
  • Input the Share
  • Give the next social recovery share a name.
  • Input the Share
  • Click the confirm. Success, you've recovered your wallet using social recovery.