Cyrptojacking How It Works and How to Protect Your Business

Cryptojacking trend continues to motivate attackers — hijacking systems for mining. Weak authentication SSH attacks are used to gain unauthorised access to systems. Once inside, cryptojacking attacks typically start with reconnaissance to determine suitability for cryptomining. Or, for existing mining systems, redirect mined coins to the attacker by altering wallet configurations. Quite apart from the problems and questionable practices within the cryptocurrency markets themselves is the use that cryptocurrency is put to. Crypto mining and cryptojacking cyberattacks have been detected on all popular desktop platforms, as well as on Android devices.

In one campaign, hackers made as much as $10,000 per day from crypto mining. Overall, cryptojacking is popular because it doesn’t need a connection to a command-and-control server operated by the hacker.

Tools Cybercriminals Use to Enable Cryptojacking

They don’t lose sensitive personal data, there’s no risk of follow-on identity fraud and they’re not extorted for funds by being locked out of their PC. While cryptojackers consume energy and may cause systems to slow down, the drain is usually insignificant enough to create substantial disruption.

• Printers are notorious for being abused because they are rarely monitored or updated.
• These vulnerabilities can be well-known threats with fixes engineered, or they can be less-well-known and un-fixed – as is the case with zero-day vulnerabilities.
• MDM – Organisations should implement a mobile device management policy to better control the devices, applications and extensions used by employees, and prevent the spread of mobile-focused cryptomalware.
• Although termed “currency”, their use as legal tender in the traditional sense has been extremely limited and very much secondary to date to their use as a speculative asset for investment.
• Multiple cryptominers therefore compete to solve the hashes that are required to validate a particular transaction.
• As more finance firms move their applications to cloud-based systems, hackers are distributing malware across corporate servers and other devices, or hijacking Wi-Fi networks to gain access.

So let’s explore the third most-frequent shell command used by attackers. AppCheck is a software security vendor based in the UK, offering a leading security scanning platform that automates the discovery of security flaws within organisations websites, applications, network, and cloud infrastructure. AppCheck are authorized by the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures Program as a CVE Numbering Authority . However, there are a few signs that your computer could be a victim, including the computer heating up, making loud fan noises, draining batteries faster than usual, decreased performance, shutting down due to lack of available processing power. Your security training should include building awareness of what attacks look like, and particularly signs that an attacker might be trying to load malicious code. Cryptojacking is the malicious use of a victim’s computer to mine cryptocurrency, and is a growing problem for both individual users and companies.

Press Release: Endpoint Malware and Ransomware Volume Exceeded 2020 Totals by End of Q3 2021

Update your IoT device’s firmware whenever prompted, even if it’s at an inopportune time. how to prevent cryptojacking Ransomware is malware, so it can generally be avoided in the same ways that malware can.

• It can also go undetected for a very long time, so hackers can make money anonymously without fear of law enforcement knocking on their doors.
• Overall, cryptojacking is popular because it doesn’t need a connection to a command-and-control server operated by the hacker.
• It can send IT teams on a time-consuming wild goose chase trying to uncover the reasons behind slow PC performance and spikes in internet usage.
• These are especially attractive to cyber criminals, as they’re often more powerful than desktops, especially if they’re located in the cloud, where they might be configured to use more CPU power on demand.
• In February and March 2019, SonicWall Capture Labs threat researchers found that 51% and 47% of ‘never-before-seen’ attacks, respectively, came via PDFs or Office files.
• “This new boundless world where we’re all working from home opens up the attack surface because most people use VPN.
• Also known as cryptojacking, these attacks have become an increasingly popular way for cybercriminals to make money.

A malicious intrusion attempt is when a threat actor tries to gain access to or control over a system by exploiting some kind of vulnerability. These vulnerabilities can be well-known threats with fixes engineered, or they can be less-well-known and un-fixed – as is the case with zero-day vulnerabilities. Ransomware incidents https://www.tokenexus.com/ have risen by 105% to a whopping 623.3 million attacks in the year leading up to the report, including withering double and triple extortion attacks. Don’t get us wrong, the widespread adoption of HTTPS/TLS is great for keeping data safe in transit, but there’s far more to cybersecurity than a mere padlock symbol.

Three-in-four wealth managers are gearing up for more cryptocurrency exposure

Educate people within your organization to consider that cryptojacking may be the reason their computer or laptop is running slow. Also, they need to be aware of the threat of phishing – as this is the primary delivery route of cryptojacking malware. Without going into too much complexity, the cryptomining process essentially turns computing resources into cryptocurrency coins. And the more computing resources you have, the more cryptocurrency you can mine. Before long though, even the most high-end PCs with powerful processors couldn’t mine profitably enough to cover the costs. Cryptojacking is a common scam where someone uses your device to mine for cryptocurrency without your permission.

Power down your IoT devices when not in use and reboot them during any available downtime. Powering off devices like these generally clears the RAM of all data – including any malicious code.

Why is cryptojacking popular?

That doesn’t mean, however, that only those with the processing capacity do it. You will also have our insightful Complete Guide To SASE article sent to you for FREE.

Some measures that would completely prevent cryptojacking via in-browser techniques, such as disabling JavaScript entirely, are simply not practical in the modern web. It can also be useful to check with firewall vendors, endpoint protection vendors and internet service providers to see if either support dynamic “blocking lists” of known malicious IPs and domains. Known as “Doman Name System Blacklists” or DNSBL’s, these have primarily been used for email spam prevention, but some vendors now offer similar lists to prevent outbound connections to malicious domains across a broader range of services.

Author: Adrian Zmudzinski