Cryptojacking

What Is Cryptojacking?

Cryptojacking is a cyberattack during which a hacker uses a target's computational power to mine bitcoin on their behalf. Individual customers, large institutions, and sometimes even industrial control systems can all be targets of cryptojacking. 

Cryptojacking malware versions slow down affected machines since the mining operation takes precedence over other lawful tasks. In addition, some cryptocurrencies are mineable, which means that anyone can use their computational capabilities to ensure the blockchain's operation and earn newly produced coins in exchange. 

These coins can then be exchanged on cryptocurrency exchanges for traditional currencies such as USD. However, this necessitates the purchase, installation, and maintenance of specialized equipment, as well as high electrical power costs, all of which eat into the profit gained from selling the mined coins.

Rather than engaging in fair competition, an unethical hacker could choose to mine cryptocurrency by stealing other people's computer resources, a technique known as cryptojacking.

Several Examples of Cryptojacking

Panda Security, a Spanish cybersecurity company, announced in February 2018 that a cryptojacking script known as "WannaMine" had spread to computers worldwide. The new virus type was being used to mine monero, a cryptocurrency. 

Monero is a digital currency that gives users and their transactions a high level of privacy. Panda Security first found WannaMine in October 2017. Unfortunately, it was responsible for multiple high-profile infections in 2018 due to its difficulty in detecting and blocking. 

After secretly infecting a victim's computer, WannaMine exploits the machine's processing capacity to repeatedly run an algorithm named CryptoNight in the hopes of obtaining a hash satisfying particular requirements before any other miners do. When this occurs, a new block is mined, resulting in the creation of fresh monero and the deposit of the windfall into the attacker's wallet. 

Later that month, governments in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada were affected by a cryptojacking assault that exploited a weakness in text-to-speech software installed on the websites of these respective governments. 

Attackers injected the Coinhive script into the software, enabling them to mine monero through visitors' browsers. In addition, Tesla Inc. was determined to have been the target of cryptojacking in February 2018. 

According to reports, mining malware was running on the company's Amazon Web Services cloud infrastructure. Although the data exposure was revealed to be minor in this case, cryptojacking offers a broad security danger to a corporation in general (in addition to accruing an enormous electric bill).