And it seems that many have.Īnd news reports are backing these claims up. That's a hefty profit, and it creates strong incentive for others to follow. That nearly broke the internet in 2016-and amassed nearly $2.3 million in cryptocurrency. In one instance, hackers created a botnet of cryptominers, dubbed 'Smominru' by security researchers, that controls over 520,000 machines-that's nearly as large as the Mirai botnet Recent reports have shown exactly how profitable cryptomining can be.

How Much of a Threat is Cryptojacking?īut beyond being the newest cybersecurity buzzword, is cryptojacking really a threat? Short answer: Yes. Think about it-if you've got thousands of users running your script to hijack their computing power and electricity to do the job, cryptojacking isĮssentially free money, and that's very tempting for the morally bankrupt. Not to mention that Monero mining is much less resource-intensive than traditional Bitcoin mining. For cryptojackers, those downsides are moot points. Safe from cryptojacking, right? Not quite. So unless you have a powerful GPU, you should be It's harmful to your hardware and just flat-out inefficient in terms of energy used vs. Now, I know what you're thinking: cryptomining on a CPU is incredibly wasteful. Or, to put it another way, imagine a stranger is using your house when you're off at work, using the water, the electricity, the heat- it's a bit like that.įor hackers, the benefit is obvious: they can mine cryptocurrencies without paying the astronomical electric bills that generally come with such activity. Is a bit like someone else taking out your car and earning money with it on Uber without you knowing, collecting the profits behind your back, and hoping you don't notice.' To run full-blown cryptocurrency mining software, which is either installed by malware or by rogue employees.Īs Peter from Spiceworks put it, 'Cryptojacking This is typically achieved with scripts that run behind the scenes on websites, though it's also possible to hijack machines and servers

What is Cryptojacking?Ĭryptojacking works by-you guessed it-hijacking other people's processing power and using it to mine cryptocurrencies. In this post, we’ll explain the basics of what cryptojacking is, and how you can detect and block it on your network. And now, while the dizzying highs of cryptocurrency prices and the bitcoin bubble (is it fair to call it a bubble now?) have crashed back down to reality, criminals are still making a killing by usingĬryptojacking to mine lesser-known alt-coins such as Monero. In early 2018, the cryptocurrency market hit unprecedented levels, leading to a boom in cryptocurrency mining, both legal and illicit. If 2017 was the year of the ransomware attack, then 2018, insofar as it can be defined by malware, was the year of cryptojacking.

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