The cybercrime landscape is constantly evolving. Cryptojacking is the latest trend that has created much buzz. Within a year, it has grown threefold, and the cases are constantly on the rise. Undoubtedly cybercriminals are thriving, but it has made ordinary users contemplate cybersecurity platform that can provide them enhanced security.
What is cryptojacking?
Cryptocurrencies are attracting more investors each passing day. This has further propelled the malicious cryptojacking activity. In cryptojacking, cybercriminals mine crypto coins through hacked computers. In simpler terms, hijackers use someone’s machine, processing power, battery life and memory to mine cryptocurrency.
This adversely impacts the device’s performance and exposes it to insecure networks, putting device data at greater risk. In some cases, it exhausts devices to reduce their lifespan. It is like using the neighbour’s electricity connection to light up your own home.
Therefore, the need for a robust cybersecurity platform has arisen that can protect devices against such illegitimate use.
How does cryptojacking work?
Monero is the most popular cryptocurrency among cybercriminals for particular reasons:
- Cryptojacking is used predominantly for mining Monero.
- Monero can be mined on computers with ordinary CPUs, unlike bitcoin, the king of cryptocurrency.
- Being a privacy-oriented coin, Monero is difficult to track in crypto wallets.
Earlier, miners used to work individually on computer systems, but as time passed, they realized that the mining process deteriorated the machine’s performance. So now, they have prepared a strategy to mine Monero on multiple compromised devices, sacrificing someone else’s device for their benefit.
Cybercriminals specifically target a company’s data centre or local area network for Monero mining. This way, they have the processing power of thousands of systems at their command.
Botnets are the culprit
It has been observed that cryptojacking is facilitated through botnets that target vulnerabilities in internet-connected systems. This includes web servers, VPN gateways and even platforms that deliver cloud applications.
Read More: A Robust Cybersecurity Platform Can Save You From Cryptojacking - Here is How
If you don’t know what is Cryptojacking, let’s throw some light on it: It is a way of secretly using the resources of a computer to mine cryptocurrency without letting the user know about it.
Everyone is trying to be the part of the rising cryptocurrencies, even though many of the cryptocurrencies are still volatile.
One of the popular chrome extensions called Archive Poster which is used by the Tumblr users to repost from the other blogs has been caught for using conhive to mine ‘Monero’ by cryptojacking.
The answer is; Whenever your Chrome browser is running it will work secretly behind the scene.
Cryptocurrency is a digital currency stored in a decentralized way without banks to monitor.
The transactions are stored in the form of blocks where the multiple blocks linking each other to forms a blockchain on the distributed ledger.
(Note: To prevent the crypto-jacking breach, Zodeak, a cryptocurrency exchange solution provider gives the security features for every script to prevent the cause and to provide a seamless business to start for Entrepreneurs to improve the sales graph.
) Crypto Jacking Definition Crypto-jacking is the form of a security breach of illegal access to a PC by running the malware into it.
Crypto mining code runs that turn the device into mining botnets.
Crypto-jacking is not to decrypt the user’s data; it will drain the computer resources and slow the system with increasing consumption of electricity which causes damage to the hardware.
https://www.forextoolstrader.com/paypal-cfo-says-the-company-wont-invest-in-cryptocurrencies/In their report, PayPal noted that they ended the year with more account sign-ups and more cash inflow as the 4th quarter brought them more gains than the other three quarters of the fiscal year 2020.
As it stands now, PayPal boasts of close to 377 million accounts, considering the over 70 million that signed up towards the end of 2020.
