Cryptojacking is one of the new methods of abusing the processing power of other devices to mine digital currencies. Many people are not familiar with the nature of Cryptojacking or Kevin Jacking and do not know that some sites use their device resources such as laptops, computers or even mobile phones to extract digital currencies. This method does not steal users’ accounts or wallets, but uses their resources and processing power without permission. Given the importance of this issue and the questions that exist about it, in this article we have decided to examine Cryptojacking. So if you have encountered strange behaviors on some sites that have slowed down your device, stay tuned to for the rest of this article.
What is Cryptojacking?
Cryptojacking, Cryptomining, and Coinjacking are modifications used to use digital currency mining malware. In this method of digital currency fraud, by unauthorized use of computational resources, processing power and system bandwidth of other people, an attempt is made to provide the resources needed to extract digital currency. Cryptojacking are usually accessed through high-traffic sites where a large number of users are active. In addition to Cryptojacking on the web, this is sometimes done by inserting malware into computer systems and networks.
Due to the rising price of digital currencies in recent years and the increasing difficulty of the mining process, some profiteers have resorted to Cryptojacking. By using this method, it is possible to provide the necessary energy and hardware power for mining by using a part of users’ processing resources, and also to earn a lot of income. Of course, in recent years, with the spread of this problem, various methods have been developed to prevent it.
How is Cryptojacking done?
Cryptojacking is a method of cyber attack in which hackers use the power of the attacked person to extract digital currencies. The target of this attack may be ordinary people, large organizations or even industrial control systems. Web-based malware slows down computers when Cryptojacking occur. These malwares prioritize the processing power of computers over the extraction of dedicated digital currencies, so other processing activities are slow.
What is the reason for Cryptojacking attacks?
To understand the reason for these attacks, it is enough to calculate the price of Bitcoin using a digital currency calculator! In fact, the higher the price of bitcoin and other digital currencies, the more greedy people will be for them. The purpose of Cryptojacking attacks is only to make digital currencies easier to extract.
On the other hand, the difficulty of the Bitcoin network has increased significantly in recent years. Miners now need very powerful and expensive hardware. In many cases, thousands of miners work together in a mining pool to obtain a small share of the mined bitcoins. In such a situation, Cryptojacking can use the processing power of thousands of infected users to achieve enormous hardware power for extraction.
How do we know we have been attacked by Cryptojacking?
These attacks are usually carried out through high-traffic but unreliable sites. These sites try to attract users with large advertisements, but they do not offer valuable content and do not have special services. Entertainment and news sites that are not even well-designed and full of content copied from other sites can be a trap for Cryptojacking. The most important thing after entering such sites is a slow computer or a sharp increase in the use of processing resources. In recent years, Google has been identifying such sites before users log in to warn about the insecurity of these sites. Not using HTTPS can also be another sign for a Kevin Jacking site.
In some cases, these sites have even been seen to make false promises to the user. For example, if you stay on the site for a certain period of time or do the required work on the site, a sum will be credited to your account. Naturally, such attractive promises are just one way to trap users.
What currencies are mined through Kevin Jacking?
The main purpose of Cryptojacking and Kevin Jacking is to extract digital currencies. Undoubtedly, their most important purpose is to extract digital currencies such as Bitcoin, Atrium, Bitcoin Cash, Light Coin and other digital currencies. Currencies such as Ripple currency that do not have an extraction process or proof-of-work algorithm are not included in this list. Monroe, meanwhile, has the largest number of Cryptojacking. The reason for this is that the hackers in the Monroe network remain anonymous.
Differences between browser extraction and Cryptojacking
Browser Mining is very similar to Cryptojacking but is done legally. Coinhive, for example, is a digital currency extraction service that monitors browser-generated revenue. Kevin Hyo allows its users to earn money by visiting various websites. But research conducted in 2018 shows that this service uses users’ processing power to extract Monroe. However, to justify this, they have stated that the extraction is done with the permission of the users and they legally pay their users for this extraction.
Examples of Cryptojacking
In 2018, Panda Antivirus announced that a code called WannaMine was being developed among computers around the world, using their processing power to extract Monroe. Shortly after the virus was detected, the US, British and Canadian governments announced that they had been attacked by Cryptojacking on their government websites via a code added to the Text-to-speech service. The attackers used Coinhive code to extract Monroe through visitor browsers. Tesla and Amazon have also been attacked by Cryptojacking. In addition, hundreds of popular sites around the world were attacked similarly. Hackers had entered browser-generated code into these popular sites to use visitors’ browsers to extract various currencies, even bitcoins.
In this article, we answered the question of what is cryptocurrency and got acquainted with this method of illegal extraction of digital currencies. Cryptocurrency has increased in the last year or two, but at the same time there are ways to deal with it. Browser add-ons can be a good tool to combat this method of harnessing your computer’s processing power. However, you should be careful not to open insecure links or enter unreliable sites.