How do Bitcoins turn into real money?
After the cyber attack of the WannaCry ransomware, the virtual currency has once again jumped into the fray. The criminals request the payment of a ransom to the owners of the infected equipment, but they do not want to charge neither in euros nor in dollars, but in Bitcoins
The word Bitcoin is the one used to refer to a type of currency that allows transactions that can not be tracked, that is, they can hide who receives and / or sends the money. It is composed in turn by the words 'bit', the minimum unit of information in computer science, and 'coin', currency in English.
This virtual currency is preferred by cybercriminals. In the recent case of cyber attacks through the WannaCry ransomware, the criminals are asking for the ransom in BitCoin.
No international banking organization supports the currency
But, what can a cybercriminal do with the virtual currency? Can you convert it into a currency of current use without being detected?
The answer is yes, and, in addition, you can use it to hire other services, such as servers and computer equipment to carry out the attacks - in a completely opaque way, without anyone knowing who you are.
This can be done because it is encrypted and is not recognized or endorsed by any international banking organization.
Currency exchange is not done from person to person, but from portfolio to portfolio, through applications similar to Paypal, but in which there are no people with names and surnames.
"User authentication is done with encrypted keys that give access to their accounts, and they do not have to be associated with a person with first and last names." A bank account can be tracked because there is an identified user behind it, because The banks require that when an account is opened there is a natural person or a company behind, this is not the case of Bitcoin ", explains Eusebio Nieva, technical director of the security company Check Point.
To operate with this type of currency there are different applications such as Bitcoin or Bitcoin Wallet. To explain it in a superficial way, these applications work as a kind of Paypal. They allow sending and receiving money, but from anonymity. That is, it is not a transfer from person to person, but one portfolio against another.
In cash or on account
How could it be otherwise, to transform something digital into physical money you need a bank. And Bitcoin is recognized by some banks, thanks to which it is possible to transform virtual currency into constant and sound notes, through ATMs, or transfer it to an account.
"This currency is very sheltered in tax havens, where tracking is even more complicated, and it is possible to send Bitcoins to third parties, who can totally extract money from a cashier by means of a code received in the mobile phone," says Nieva. .
