Expect more types of criminals to employ Bitcoin

Oct 31, 2015 10:41 GMT  ·  By

During this past year, in two cases, criminals specifically asked for payments to be made in Bitcoins before they were to release their kidnapped victims.

In plain sight, it was bound to happen. Bitcoin is the perfect untraceable currency, thanks to the way it was constructed to work.

The only things Bitcoin blockchain servers record are the two parties involved in the transaction and the time it takes place at.

No names, IP addresses, geo-location data, home addresses, or anything else that could lead to revealing the identity of one of the two persons involved in the payment.

In the beginning, cyber-crooks deployed Bitcoin as an alternative method of payment for ransomware infections. As Bitcoin grew in popularity, it become the favorite and sometimes only method of payment for such infections.

The crypto-currency then grew even more in popularity, as DDoS outfits started demanding payments in Bitcoin to stop their attacks. Some hackers even extorted companies before they would breach their servers, asking for payments in Bitcoin to leave them alone.

So it is to no surprise that other classes of criminals are now starting to use it. Even if only two cases have been reported until now, one in Costa Rica in January and one in Hong Kong this October, this type of incidents are bound to become more mainstream in 2016.