Money Under The Mattress?
Money Under The Mattress?
People have been keeping money under the mattress of centuries, and criminals know that people who keep money in their home are an easy target. Basically, break-in, and demand that the owner shows them where the money is. And so we keep our money in banks, as we know that banks are safe places. But what about cryptocurrency? Well, wherever the owner is, the cryptocurrency is also likely to be.
Apart from holding your private key in a physical vault in Switzerland, most cryptocurrency owners will either have their private key on their mobile phone, on a physical cryptocurrency wallet. So, if a criminal knows that someone has cryptocurrency, they can target them with a threat of their life, and force them to reveal their private key. Once revealed, it takes less than 10 minutes for a transaction from the target’s account to the criminal gang’s account, and the money will be gone, and never traced. The chances of getting an money back will be almost zero.
And so it happened on 14 May 2019 that a Norweign multimillionaire — with a wealth of around $11.2 million and made from cryptography — had to jump from a second-floor balcony in order to avoid robbers armed with shotguns. While he managed to escape, others have not been so lucky, and where recently five men were arrested in Kerala (India) for torturing the lead for a failed $62.5 million Bitcoin investment scheme. Recent, too, in Russia, a cryptocurrency investor who boasted about his wealth was murdered by masked intruders.
Also in May 2019, in the Netherlands, Tjeerd H. — a Bitcoin trader — was attacked by intruders wearing police uniforms and with balaclavas and bulletproof vests. And in January 2018, a Russian businessman was held hostage while on holiday in Phuket, Thailand, and was not released until he logged onto his computer and transferred $100,000 to his attackers. In 2018, too, Sailesh Bhatt, in Gujarat, India, was beaten until he paid a ransom of $770,000 in cryptocurrency.
Conclusions
Criminals are now becoming savy with crypocurrency, and where it can be a relatively easy crime to commit. So…
“DON’T TELL ANYONE IF YOU HAVE CRPTOCURRENCY”
While the cryptography and physical security of cryptocurrencies is very strong, the threat of being beaten up and for you to reveal your login details is not as strong from a security point-of-view.