Cyber criminals are deploying malicious software to mine cryptocurrencies using third-party computers, this cybercrime is known as cryptojacking.
Cryptojacking is the malicious practice of hijacking the resources of a computer to mine cryptocurrencies, it has taken off on a large scale since the end of last year.
According to a Symantec report released last week, cryptojacking increased by 8,500% last year, especially since September which is more or less the time when the price of Bitcoin and Ethereum shot up into the stratosphere.
In addition to being lucrative, cryptojacking is generally easier to do than installing malicious software on someone's computer, and often goes unnoticed by the victim. The report says:
Cyber criminals use coinminers (cryptocurrency miners) to steal the processing power of victims' computers and the use of the cloud CPU to mine cryptocurrencies. The entry barrier for the extraction of coins is quite low, possibly only requiring a couple of lines of code to operate and the extraction of coins can allow criminals to stay under the radar in a way that is not possible with other types of crimes cybernetic ".
While not necessarily as destructive as malicious software, cryptojacking is far from not harming its victims, it can cause computers to overheat and cause damage in that way. According to the report, in organizations can cause all kinds of problems, including incurring significant financial costs if the organization bills based on the use of the CPU.
We've seen cryptojacking emerge all over the past year, from websites to Chrome extensions and apps in the Apple Mac App Store. Symantec says it discovered 1.7 million coinminers (cryptocurrency miners) on computers in December.
On the other hand, ransomware (a type of malicious software often linked to cryptocurrencies), decreased in 2017, both in terms of new ransomware families and in a lower rescue requirement. The cases of ransomware, which normally encrypts a person's data and requests a cryptocurrency payment to unlock it, required USD $ 522 on average, less than half that of 2016. Currently, ransomware is often used as a decoy or a tool of distraction instead of real gain.
¿How to prevent being a victim of cryptojacking?
Staying safe is not really very difficult. There are two main methods:
Browser extensions there are several specific anti-mining extensions for Chrome (the browser with the highest rate of cryptojacking). Try No Coin or minerBlock.
Script blockers: the previous blockers focus on the mining scripts. There are other excellent script blockers available for Chrome and other browsers. uBlock Origin has an excellent variety of scrip block lists. Mozilla users can try NoScript.
As we have seen, cryptojacking is not yet a huge problem, but as more sites realize that it is a potentially lucrative source of income, there may be an even more significant rebound.