Cryptojacking — Threat, Impacts and how to protect business from becoming a victim
When Microsoft blocked more than 400,000 cryptojacking attempts in one day, businesses feared that an outbreak was underway. It was only a tip of the iceberg. More than 55 percent of businesses worldwide have faced crypto mining attacks. With cybercriminal groups launching more and more attacks to infiltrate networks and quietly mine for coins, large-scale cryptojacking threat has emerged as the new norm. The practice of mining cryptocurrency on other people’s hardware is overtaking ransomware as a tool of choice for extorting money online. Gangs are working overtime to get you to click on a malicious link in an email that loads crypto mining code on the computer; sometimes, they just use online ads with JavaScript code that auto-executes once loaded in the browser. No code is stored on the victims’ computers. Cryptojacking takes place everywhere — on websites, servers, PCs, and mobiles. Take for instance, Coinhive, one of the most prevalent rogue software. Coinhive uses the proc...