Security Company G4S Introduces Offline Vault Storage for Cryptocurrencies
Multinational security services company G4S is taking its initial steps in the world of crypto. The London-based firm will now be offering cryptocurrency protection.
G4S is the world’s largest security services provider with operations in more than 90 countries. It guards everything from cash transfers to nuclear power plants, prison transportation to monitoring equipment and response units.
In a press release dated October 17, the firm revealed that it has developed a new service which will provide highly secured offline cryptocurrency storage, to safeguard clients’ crypto assets from criminals and hackers.
Dominic Maciver, a Senior Risk Analyst at G4S Risk Consulting, explained why the service was safer than others,
“Offline storage has become a more established and secure way of storing crypto-assets… At the same time, violent robberies and kidnappings in recent years have shown that the sector is still exposed to conventional criminal threats. In collaboration with our client, our security solution is built on a foundation of ‘vault storage.’ We not only take the assets offline but break them up into fragments that are independent without value and store them securely in our high-security vaults, out of reach of cyber criminals and armed robbers alike.”
Moreover, the vault sites are ‘heavily restricted.’ To gain access to them, any user has to undergo multiple layers of security. Clients can access their assets only when all fragments are combined with specific technology.
G4S also informed that it has already started working with an unnamed cryptocurrency exchange. It charges clients on the basis of the number of different offline storage devices they want to use to store their private keys. The firm reportedly uses its own existing vaults for the service, rather than newly built facilities.
The firm claims that cryptocurrency exchanges have started approaching them to avail their new services. Dominic MacIver said, “Our clients approach us to discuss solutions to their requirements because of G4S Cash Solutions’ experience in protecting high-value items and G4S Risk Consulting’s experience in developing bespoke solutions to complex challenges. Working with our clients, we are continuously applying their expert knowledge of crypto-assets and our best practice in physical security to a sector at the cutting edge of financial technology.”
G4S believes that its cold storage solutions will facilitate institutional investor adoption.
Maclver concludes saying,
“It has been a justified cliche to describe the cryptocurrency space as a Wild West. Working with our clients, our innovative vault storage concept offers the highest protection to keep people and their assets secure and bring order to the frontier.”
