Cryptojacking: Hackers Just Want to Borrow your CPU
As cryptocurrency proliferation continues, digital thieves see opportunity. It’s easy to understand why, the cryptocurrency space is “pre-regulation” and it’s an industry where nascent technology is used by people who don’t fully understand it to hold and transfer entirely digital assets. If that doesn’t sound like an “attack surface” I don’t know what does.
Business Insider reported that over $650 million in cryptocurrency was stolen in the first quarter of 2018. Many of these are thefts are phishing attacks, where users have their login credentials stolen. A newer tactic called cryptojacking is gaining popularity. In these attacks computers are tricked into mining cryptocurrency on behalf of an attacker.
When computers “mine” cryptocurrency, they are essentially renting out their computer to the distributed network that powers the cryptocurrency. In return for donating their computer’s computational resources to the network miners are rewarded with a combination of transaction fees and brand new cryptocurrency entering the money supply. There are complex algorithms that mediate this process just as there is complex policy regarding how new $100 bills enter the money supply.
Different cryptocurrencies have different exact mechanics but the general principle remains the same: contribute some computational…
