Why Bitcoin? Ransom. If you're a criminal, it's a particularly convenient currency….
Large UK businesses are holding bitcoin to pay ransoms
Excerpt:
Based in Fort Lauderdale Florida, Citrix is a software corporation founded on a core principle, “to make the world’s apps and data secure and easy to access.” Over 400,000 organizations and over 100 million users across the globe use Citrix solutions, generating the company $3.28 billion in revenue during 2015.
The American multinational corporation recently commissioned Censuswide to quizz 250 IT and security specialists in UK companies with 250 or more employees, “to glean further insights as to their strategies to defend against cyber and ransomware attacks.”
“Ransomware risk could cripple British businesses with many not ready.” ~ Citrix
The poll focused on large UK enterprises, those with 250 or more employees, and not small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with fewer than 250 employees.
The research shows that 33 percent of the companies surveyed are “stockpiling Bitcoins to pay up,” in the event of a ransomware attack.
Businesses with more than 250 employees accounted for 0.1% of UK enterprises at the beginning of 2015. However, “the 7,000 large businesses in the UK make a large contribution to employment and turnover,” states the UK Department for Business Innovation & Skills. The group accounts for £2.0 trillion in turnover, 53% of the private sector total, and employs 10.3 million, 40% of the private sector workforce.
More than half of firms with 501-1000 employees are already storing cryptocurrencies, while 36 percent of businesses with 250-500 employees are doing the same. Among companies with between 1,000 and 2,000 employees, 24.4 percent keep a ready stock of digital currency such as bitcoin, Citrix told BraveNewCoin.
Only 18 percent of businesses with more than 2,000 employees see a need for building their digital currency stockpiles. However, 35 percent of this group are willing to pay £50,000 or more to regain access to important intellectual property (IP) or business critical data.
An independent 2016 Crypto-Ransomware Report, commissioned by Intermedia and executed by market-research consultancy Researchscape International, found that paying for restored access is more about losing productivity during downtime than it is the cost of the ransom. Their report revealed that 72 percent of infected business users could not access their data for at least two days following a ransomware outbreak, and 32 percent lost access for five days or more.
"Experts observed significant data recovery costs, reduced customer satisfaction, missed deadlines, lost sales and, in many cases, traumatized employees." ~ Intermedia
Stopping the spread of the infection within an organization is also an important consideration. Felix Yanko, President of Technology & Beyond recently explained that ransomware, such as CryptoLocker, can take down multiple offices in one fell swoop.
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