In most cases, when hackers hack into a high profile company, they do so with intentions of stealing data.
They do this because company secrets can often be obtained and then sold to the highest bidder on the black market. Or, in some cases, technology companies are hacked by state-backed actors in order to gain a peak into the company's technology or intel.
However, neither of those seem to be the motivations for the latest rounds of hacking.
The security intelligence group Redlock released a report that found at least two different companies had their AWS cloud services hacked by people who wanted nothing more than to use the gained computing power to mine Bitcoin.
Yes, you read that right.
Hackers are hacking companies in order to use their computing power to mine some extra Bitcoins.
How did they do it?
According to the report, hackers ultimately got access to Amazon's cloud servers after discovering that administrative consoles were not password protected.
Specifically, it was revealed that hackers were running a Bitcoin mining command from one of the Kubernetes containers.
Kubernetes is an opensource technology that makes it simpler to write apps for the cloud.
The hackers basically stole expensive space in corporate cloud storage in order to run their Bitcoin mining software.
Who was affected?
The two companies mentioned in the report were Aviva and Gemalto.
Both are large international companies.
Aviva and Gelmalto were notified by Redlock when the issues were discovered.
Neither has commented publicly on the findings.
Why did the hackers do it?
The simplest answer is that they did it because of the price of Bitcoin.
Which is currently sitting around $4500 per coin.
Mining Bitcoin is very energy intensive and very costly in terms of electricity used (at least in most places).
With Bitcoin being up near $4500 per coin, it is profitable to mine. Especially if you can find a way to cut out the costs, like these hackers did.
It's not just hackers though...
People have been finding all sorts of creative ways to mine Bitcoin since the price explosion earlier this year.
In fact, employees have even been fired for mining Bitcoin at work.
Two government IT workers in Crimea were fired a few weeks ago for mining Bitcoin from their work computers.
With Bitcoin inching higher, I expect we will hear about more and more instances like this where people are finding new and creative ways of mining the currency profitably.
Stay informed my friends.
Sources:
http://www.businessinsider.com/hackers-broke-into-amazon-cloud-to-mine-bitcoin-2017-10
Image Sources:
https://www.genesis-mining.com/how-to-mine-bitcoin
http://newatlas.com/shadow-brokers-data-subscription-plan/49791/
https://qz.com/1026605/photos-chinas-bitcoin-mines-and-miners/
