British companies stockpile Bitcoin “for a rainy day”

British newspaper The Telegraph has published an article on how country’s companies are stockpiling Bitcoin cryptocurrency. Companies take this measure hoping they would be able to pay up the hackers in case of possible cyberattacks. Paul Taylor, former Ministry of Defence cyber chief, told the Telegraph that big business still prefers to pay the ransom in case the systems get infected with ransomware. Financial losses in this situation are seen as the lesser evil compared to reputational losses in case the incident becomes public knowledge. Using Bitcoin allows to hide the fact that the company cooperated with cyber criminals.

Taylor also said that some companies order their employees to create Bitcoin wallets and keep an eye on the exchange rate. The Telegraph’s sources from Citrix said that representatives of large British businesses in case of a cyber attack are willing to pay £136 thousand on average in case of a ransomware attack. Citrix estimates that the average size of a Bitcoin reserve in a large British company is 23 Bitcoin.