The Spanish security company Prosegur has announced it has developed a top-secret “crypto bunker” – the details of which would turn a spy movie supervillain green with envy.
The firm, which first announced its entry in the crypto custody arena in November last year and has launched a subsidiary named Prosegur Crypto, claims to have “more than 20” institutional clients from the world of global finance on its books.
But per Expansión, the security company has “gone one step further” and announced the launch of its “first bunker for the digital custody of cryptocurrencies.” While the world was wowed by the repurposed Swiss military vaults Xapo was offering its clients back in 2017, even a James Bond antagonist would struggle to outdo the latest Prosegur project.
The “bunker’s” location in Spain has not been revealed – and no photos are yet forthcoming. But the firm claimed that 100 security protocols are in place in what the media outlet described as “a military-grade protection environment, fitted with biometric access security and closed-circuit cameras” that is “totally isolated from the outside” with “internet connectivity” completely blocked from inside the bunker.
The bunker was built with the aid of a partnership deal with the Israeli cybersecurity company GK8, which is reportedly masterminded by Israeli crypto sector and secret service “veterans” – as well as a former Israel Defence Forces general who once headed the military’s Cybersecurity Intelligence unit.
Inside the secret bunker, a Hardware Security Module (HSM) generates, stores, and protects private keys, which are stored “inside a briefcase,” with access permitted only “to a very limited number of people” who carry out “completely manual management of transactions.”
These workers have “restricted access to the information they handle,” in a step that helps “avoid any risk of internal theft.”
To top it all off, these workers operate from what the firm said was a “secure area” in which “there is no danger of physical attack, copying or the theft of [data] or keys.”
But should some budding 007 attempt a break-in, they would instantly be thwarted in their efforts, the company hinted. It added that unauthorized HSM access was protected by failsafe protocol that would ensure that its “contents are completely erased” in the event of a break-in, although a recovery plan will allow the re-generation of the erased private keys in other, secure Prosegur vaults.
The Prosegur Crypto CEO Raimundo Castilla was quoted as stating that the firm is hoping to build similar bunkers in Germany and “in Latin America, specifically in Argentina and Brazil.”
Castilla added:
“We have been testing the market, speaking to large exchanges and banks that are beginning to enter the crypto sector, as well as funds. The prospects are very good because the reception is very positive.”
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