Crypto-jacking is a form of cybercrime that has taken its shape with the surge of cryptocurrency in the market. You can use VPN to protect your online crypto-currency transactions and to provide you with the cybersecurity you need for safe trading.
The world being online now, everything you do is always being tracked. Every transaction that you make can be subjected to fraud and so you must save your online presence beforehand. A VPN is God’s gift to the online world. This technology masks your online presence, i.e., your IP Address, and also makes sure you’re secure and anonymous even in case of sudden network failure.
This way any person online trying to hack into your account won’t be able to do so as you will be protected. The server will be getting an address far away from your original location hence they won’t be able to crypto-jack your resources.
We will now discuss the concept of crypto-jacking and how it has evolved into a cybercrime, stealing people’s resources and money in an online trading market.
Crypto-Jacking
Source: internetofbusiness.com
The concept is, hackers, get into your system and start mining crypto-currencies while using your resources. Mining is essentially solving equations and other work for which you get paid.
What are the resources? Well, essentially your hardware is what they are after as mining requires really strong, powerful computers. After mining, they take the coins in their account while all the resources used are yours. The hackers will get all the benefits from it while the cost burden will be on your shoulders.
Instead of opting for the standard way of mining their coins and developing their mining rigs, hackers use software that is not easy to detect hence they can be in your system for a long time, using your resources and you wouldn’t even know.
Sounds terrifying?
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How Does It Function?
Source: thenextweb.com
When designing malware a crypto-Jacker can go two ways. He will either develop malware that will send people with crypto-currencies emails or texts with a link.
This link, if clicked, will download a mining script to their accounts and hence will give access to the hacker to mine the cryptocurrency and send it back to their account on your resources.
The other way that crypto-jacking attacks your cyber presence is through websites where hackers put plug-ins or ads which have crypto scripts in them
Hence when a person is using an online crypto-currency website for mining then the hacker will also be able to mine along with the user.
Such scripts are not downloaded onto your device hence this form of crypto-jacking is not that invasive.
The mined currency this way gets deposited into the account of the hacker and the cost of mining will become your issue.
This includes the use of your electricity and your device’s resources which you are accountable for.
Crypto-jacking in either way is safe for the hacker as it can go undetected for a long time. The reason for its preference is the same as many devices can be hacked into and exploited for shorter times. This gives them the advantage of leaving before the authorities get a hint of what’s happening.
It is also preferred as it’s efficient in the way that it doesn’t use a person’s data but his resources. This is why the hacker can go so long before being found out as he is not using the personal information of the person but just basic things which can go unnoticed for a long time.
Coins Involved
Source: cryptonomist.ch
The coins which crypto-Jackers prefer are not easily detectable and hence can be mined easily. Such an example is Monero which is very common among crypto-jackers.
Other than this they can mine any coin they want like bit-coin or lite-con but they try to do this very carefully to not get caught.
Detection And Prevention
Source: sectigostore.com
Detecting Cryptojacking is not as easy as you think it is since the activity is usually hidden. However, there are a couple of ways you can detect this activity and prevent yourself from it:
Detection
Here are a few ways through which you can detect crypto-jacking:
- You might notice your device’s speed has slowed down and this could be because a hacker has invaded your space. You might also need to be very alert about your device crashing or exhibiting unreasonably poor performance. Also, you have to keep an eye on the daily usage of the crypto-currency app as well as your battery draining time.
- Another feature that could let you detect crypto-jacking is the overheating of your device. If you feel that your laptop’s fan is being much speedier than usual, then it could be an alarming sign. This can easily damage your laptop if not detected at the right time.
- Another effective way to detect that there are crypto mining scripts running on your device is to monitor your CPU usage. If you notice slightly increased CPU usage on sites that barely have any media content, then the possibility of crypto-mining becomes more solid.
Prevention
Here are a few preventive measures you need to take to stay away from crypto mining:
- Installing anti-malware and antivirus software is a good investment and can go a long way to prevent such mishaps from happening.
- Getting extensions on your web browser like MinerBlock will also help keep the hackers out of the sites you use for crypto-currency mining by blocking scripts of malware.
- Using VPN is again advised as it protects your account by thorough encryption.
- Stay away from any fishy links you receive on social sites as they may contain a malware script.
- Using an effective ad-blocker to block all malicious crypto-mining scripts and codes as website advertisements is the most common way to embed any crypto-jacking script.
