The majority (80 per cent) of organisations have expressed interest in using cryptocurrencies - such as bitcoin - for business transactions, despite widespread fears of being compromised by associated DDoS attacks, according to new research from the Neustar International Security Council (NISC).
While 48 percent highlighted alternative forms of currency as a way to generate income through potential increased value, 26 per cent of businesses also pointed out the heightened risk of currencies being used as an alternate form of ransom.
This ongoing fear has encouraged the majority of organisations to focus heavily on increasing their ability to respond to DDoS (41%), ransomware (40%) and targeted hacking (39%).
This new data has been revealed as part of a bi-monthly research series from the NISC, which has polled 255 IT security CTOs, VPs, senior directors, business managers and other professionals with a security remit across Europe.
The NISC research findings have also been used to calculate a unique Cyber Benchmark Index, which measures the level of concern in the NISC community of security professionals about the current international cybersecurity landscape. Based on the latest set of data, the index figure has reached 10.5, a considerable increase from the 6.5 rating in May last year, and 0.4 points higher than the last report in November.
