Cryptojacking is getting out of control: 4 famous cases
By Esteban Vargas on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE
Cryptojacking is a big cyber threat today. The way this threat works is by hijacking computers in order to steal their computing power, a power used to mine cryptocurrency. Mining a single Bitcoin can cost as much as $26,170 USD, this price takes into consideration the electric costs of different countries. Paying this price, and not gaining something in return is bad business for individuals as well as companies.
To get infected by a cryptojacker worm all a user has to do is enter a site that contains a script. Crytpojacking is mostly intentional, for example, illegal download sites have shifted from adware towards cryptojacking because of its higher profitability. However, hackers can also inject those scripts to high-profile websites so that they mine via those. Let’s talk about 4 of those high-profile cases.
Tesla Motors
According to a cybersecurity consultancy firm, Tesla had hundreds of Kubernetes administration consoles accessible over the internet without any password protection. When hackers found this vulnerability their main purpose wasn’t to steal information but rather to inject cryptojacking scripts.
Starbucks
In December 2017 a Starbucks customer claimed that their in-store wifi provider in Buenos Aires forces a 10 second delay when you first connect to the wifi so it can mine bitcoin using a customer’s laptop. The company immediately took action and solved the issue a week later.
San Diego Zoo
According to a report published by cybersecurity researcher Troy Mursch in May 2018, Coinhive was found on the website of the San Diego Zoo. It’s known that hackers were able to bypass the zoo’s cloud in order to inject the script due to a known vulnerability in an outdated version of CMS Drupal.
Government of Chihuahua
In the same report by Troy Mursch, it was reported that the Government of Chihuaha’s website was also part of the 300 sites reported to be cryptojacked. As well as the San Diego Zoo, this site was running on an outdated Drupal version.
Conclusion
If high traffic websites such as the ones mentioned above are getting bypassed and infected, it means that anyone of us can enter such sites soon and get our CPU power hijacked. Open-source browser extensions exist, but all they do is blacklist websites that have been reported. What if a site is infected but it hasn’t been reported yet?
At SafeTalpa we’re building the best remedy for this harm. If you want to test our beta feel free to write me at esteban@safetalpa.com
Featured image from Shutterstock.
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