With the advent of cryptocurrencies comes a new threat that's starting to recieve alot of attention as of late.
Anyone surfing the interwebs can be targeted to become a unknowing member of a hackers workforce, the term is called "cryptojacking."
Savvy computer users have discovered malicious code on the websites of several major companies around the world. Even government run sites have fell victim.
In Canada, grocery giant Loblaws Ltd. and Shopper Drug Mart have been targeted and found using visitors to mine cryptos.
Codes are left on these sites by cryptojackers looking to break into your computer and take over its processing power.
Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Monero are digital coins created by groups of computers known as miners. They work together to solve mathematical puzzles to verify transactions. The more puzzles the groups solve the more cryptocurrency they earn. The exercise is hugely taxing on a computers processing power and the electricity it requires is very expensive.
So by adding a malicious JavaScript code to various websites, these hackers can spread it to visitors computers and hijack their processing power to mine coins.
This cryptojacking can hog your cpu slowing it down significantly and also costing unknown victims money by the way of increased power consumption.
This problem is becoming more widespread, as miners are looking for new ways to make a profit now that it's getting harder to mine due to the sheer computing power that is required. A less evasive hijacking is now being implemented aswell that only mines coins on other people's computers when they surf the internet.
Major websites have even started to add code themselves to thier sites to take advantage of people while visiting their pages. Pirate Bay for instance was looking at ways to turn a profit without having to resort to selling ads. They were using visitors to help them mine Monero and not telling anyone they were doing it.
The problem is becoming more widespread daily and has even recently been noticed here on Steemit. One witness was allegendy caught using other people's cpu power to mine coins aswell.
One way people can protect themselves is by adding internet browser extensions such as Adblock and No Coin. They'll search your computer and look for others trying to harness your cpu for this shady mining activity and shut it down.
Just as a note, most times your personal information is not threatened or stolen, the cryptojacking only uses your processing power to mine coins. That being said it's probably a good idea to ad the browser extensions to make sure you're not being targeted.
Thanks for reading,
