Take the hit.
Keep the money.

Standing approvals. The classic drain is an “approve” you didn’t read. A Rod won’t sign one, ever: not approve, not increaseAllowance, not setApprovalForAll, not Permit2. When you pay a contract, the Rod approves the exact amount, makes the call and sets it back to zero in the same transaction.

Signatures. A Rod has no private key, so token permit signatures can’t exist for it, and it doesn’t accept contract signatures either. There’s nothing for a phishing page to get you to sign.

Surprises. Everything you trust is trusted as one thing: a person who can only receive, a token with its own daily limit, or a contract you call. Instant actions only reach those, and ETH and each token only leave up to a limit over any rolling 24 hours, measured before and after every action. A new address, a bigger amount, or any change that loosens the rules waits out your delay first. Tightening (forgetting an address, lowering a limit, lengthening the delay) happens instantly.

Known thieves. When anyone cancels a held transaction and reports it, the destination gets a strike on the shared map. Three strikes from Rods at least a week old ground an address: no Rod will send to it unless its owner deliberately overrides.

What it can’t do. It can’t protect what you keep outside the Rod, and it can’t stop someone who has both your hot key and your backup key. A contract you trust can do whatever its own code allows with money you leave inside it, so only trust contracts that don’t hold funds, like swap routers. Your backup key is the root of trust: keep it offline. The contracts are tested and fork-rehearsed but have not had an external audit yet.