Beware of your desktop device and your mobile browser is exposed to cryptojacking so it can be exploited to mine crypto currency. The impact, can make the phone heats up, slow down, drain the battery, to damage the device.
Cryptojacking itself is an extension of cryptocurrency hijack, aka piracy of user devices that hackers use to mine crypto currency. Usually the currency being mined in this way is Monero.
Infiltrate on the site
Cryptojacking begins to exploit a person's laptop or smartphone when a user visits a site that has been infected by a particular Java code.
Users will not realize that the device has been hijacked to mine a coin. Therefore, this piracy takes place immediately, do not need to download as most other malware.
Cyber criminals can slip code for this piracy onto websites that look suspicious. They can start to extract crypto money from the traffic that flows to the site.
Each device that visits actually only helps a little coin mining. But, with millions of devices that make a visit to the site, then the power that can be hijacked to do the mining will also be quite large.
This method is even used by some media sites and games to earn an alternative income from crypto money. They deliberately tethered the Java code to mine crypto money from the devices of the visitors of the site.
It is estimated that there are currently over 3 million webs prone to cryptojacking, as Opera mentioned in its press release.
experiencedoid, until the browser is hijacked
Not just the site, this piracy also infects public Wi-Fi system. This is experienced by Starbucks customers in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Users feel the internet connection on their devices is slowing down when connected to Wi-Fi from the coffee shop, Wired reported.
Loapi, one of the Android malware for crypto currency manambang is even mentioned could be damaging when exploiting the device.
Not just a site, this cryptojacking actually stems from the hijacking of devices through the browser (in-browser mining). Coinhive is one of the pioneers.
Cybercriminals intentionally enter malicious code to exploit user devices that use certain browsers. Later CoinHive charged for the site owner who wanted to insert his crypto money miner script.
To avoid this exploit, users can use a browser that has ad blocker features. In addition to stopping ads, this feature can also stop the existing code on the site to hijack the user's device.
