Source: G4S, Ed Robinson, Tom Parker/One Red Eye

When a global company with USD 10 billion in revenue and almost USD 6 billion market capitalization, operating in 90 countries announces its first crypto-related service, the market should listen - the crypto mass adoption just got a boost.

G4S, a global integrated security company, has announced about its new service offering offline storage that helps to protect digital assets from criminals and hackers. The company is now keeping cryptocurrency assets offline in vaults in various locations.

“We not only take the assets offline, but break them up into fragments that are independently without value and store them securely in our high security vaults, out of reach of cyber criminals and armed robbers alike. Access to these sites is heavily restricted with multiple layers of security and robust protocols, and only when all the fragments are combined with specific technology can they unlock access to the value stored within,” senior risk analyst at G4S Risk Consulting Dominic MacIver explained in a blog post.

According to the company, cryptocurrency exchanges are turning to G4S as they invest in their infrastructure, while the company is also advising its clients on threat identification and risk mitigation. This includes assessing vulnerabilities to customers’ assets and working practices to identify where they could be exposed to additional risks, such as through armed attacks, and advising on how to address and reduce those risks and vulnerabilities.

“The original goal of cryptocurrencies was to redesign the fundamental architecture of money,” MacIver said. “Although some early adopters have made enormous returns, the sector has attracted the same old threats for financial systems, including robbers, scammers, market manipulators and many others."

Although the coins themselves are protected by layers of cryptography, making them virtually unhackable, the people themselves are not always safe. Only recently, a 24-year-old man has been found dead in his apartment, which might be linked to a bitcoin trade.

However, G4S is not the first to add physical vaults as a means of protecting crypto assets. As Cryptonews.com previously reported, Xapo, a startup founded by Argentine entrepreneur Wences Casares, has built a network of underground vaults on five continents, including one in a decommissioned Swiss military bunker. At the time, Xapo was supposedly safekeeping keys to approximately USD 10 billion in bitcoin. CoinShares, a crypto investment company, for example, had more than USD 500 million at Xapo, and their CEO Ryan Radloff said, “You couldn’t pay me to keep it with a bank.”

Inside the Xapo Swiss vault

Cryptonews.com has also previously published a piece on how to protect yourself from various types of attacks.