The kidnappings of encryption were all over the world thanks to the increasing value of the currency and the low -risk worker for criminals, according to experts.
“What we have seen in the past eight or nine months is a huge increase in frequency and frankly the harshness of these types of attacks,” Adam Haley, the former US Marine Infantry and founder of the Security Company, told The Post.
“It is a type of coordination with the high price of bitcoin,” he said. “Then there were some successful ransom payments mainly in Canada and Europe, which now captured the attention of a wider criminal base, which sees this money really easy.”
Haley, who advises companies how to avoid attacks, said it makes sense to increase.
“If you are already thinking about it, it is completely logical,” Healy said. “It is much easier – a lower risk – and it is much larger than, for example, stealing a bank or stealing a small store. You will not get a battlefield while trying to leave the bank.”
He pointed out that the cryptocurrencies increased in value, with the value of bitcoin increased by 54 % in the past year, and it is also difficult to track them from dollars.
The attacks, which are increasing all over the world, were particularly prevalent in France.
In one of the attempts that were kidnapped earlier this month, the daughter and grandson of a French encoded coach in Paris were kidnapped almost in broad daylight by four convincing men who jumped from a car.
The men tried to withdraw the woman, who was with her husband and her two -year -old son, to their truck in the French capital.
“Leave me!” The woman shouted when the attackers raised the husband.
Armed passers -by chased a fire extinguish of men by threatening to throw them on them.
Earlier this month, the father of the man who achieved a wealth in the cryptocurrency was exposed and subjected to gasoline after he was kidnapped in broad daylight from the street in Paris. The kidnappers cut one of his fingers.
In the past, cryptocurrency investors were primarily concerned about piracy but used physical storage devices to make it almost impossible.
“Many people reach the security level that gold puts gold to gold to gold alongside death,” Jameson Loop, co -founder of Bitcoin Security Casa, told the Wall Street Journal recently. “But if you are a high -level person … this is when you worry about the physical attack.”
Healy, a security expert, teaches the classrooms of small groups of investors about what they can do to protect themselves and what they do if they are taken, in reality.
He said that one of the ways is to have a plan in its place to present something else of another value.
“I cannot give you $ 10 million,” telling his students to say. “But I can give you a million dollars if I allow me to leave.”
