Detection of coinminers on endpoint computers rose 8,500 percent in 2017, Symantec says

[Shawn Knight]

Cryptocurrency mining was one of the biggest trends in technology in 2017 yet as is often the case when there’s a surge in interest in something, it attracts its fair share of bad eggs.

According to Symantec’s latest cyber security threat guide, detections of coinminers on endpoint computers surged by 8,500 percent in 2017. Activity was flat through most of the year but skyrocketed in the final months of 2017, correlating with spikes in cryptocurrency prices at the time.

(Detections of coinminers on endpoint computers in 2017 surged by 8,500 percent)

As Symantec highlights, some cyber criminals use coinminers to steal victims’ computer processing power to mine cryptocurrencies. It can be trivially easy to cryptojack a machine – potentially only requiring a few lines of code – and criminals can often fly under the radar due in part to the anonymous nature of cryptocurrencies and the fact that victims may not even realize their machines have been compromised (computer slowdowns are often attributed to other issues or even old age).

In addition to slowing down a machine and potentially hampering productivity, cryptojackers are essentially stealing electricity from their victims. Worse yet, excessive heat generated by mining can easily ruin hardware or cause mobile phone batteries to overheat.

Symantec says the threat has largely been limited to computers and mobile phones but as coinminers evolve, cyber criminals may increasingly target IoT devices. Individually, such devices aren’t very capable and thus, won’t generate any significant gains but when you’ve got an army of them at your disposal, it can be quite profitable. There’s power in numbers, after all.

Thumbnail via Getty Images

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https://www.techspot.com/news/73857-detection-coinminers-endpoint-computers-rose-8500-percent-2017.html

 

[JaredTheDragon]

We just ran into one of these over at CGTalk.com, one of the biggest and best communities for computer graphics. One of their old site headers evidently got infiltrated somehow, turning the entire site into a mining op. I noticed it immediately as I was rendering in Maya at the time, and my CPU usage dropped to 2% in Maya and 98% in Firefox, almost crippling my computer.

It took them three days to fix it.

Of course, I just found the Java script and blocked it in the meanwhile, but SOMEONE made a bunch of money off that adventure, and of course nobody knows who.

 

[Boilerhog146]

Its already been written about ,legit companies using cryptojacking software.when ever someone logs into a website ,,I just wonder how bad this will get before it becomes a common thing with lots of websites. I mean whats the harm in getting someone to mine in the background while they read a review.or do a little browsing.
And yes there was sarcasm, included.
I run a monitoring software to see cpu/gpu usage. at any given time ,I highly recommend ,anyone to monitor for spikes in usage.

 

[Shadowboxer]

Caught these a few times. The smarter ones don’t utilise more than 10-15% of your systems power to go undetected. Check your torrent streaming software if you’re into to that sort of thing. It seems that those peddling crypto are doing everything they can to make sure it gets banned. And if anyone thinks a government can’t ban this stuff think again. They technically can’t stop the chain but they can place enough sanctions on the use of crypto and block access to enough trading sites to render the currency effectively worthless.

And oh what a shame that would be. Never thought I’d say it but for once I think something is better centralised.

 

[Reehahs]

To be honest, I would prefer websites using cryptomining at 10-20% CPU use after getting my consent instead of ads.

 

[captaincranky]

"Symantec says the threat has largely been limited to computers and mobile phones but as coinminers evolve, cyber criminals may increasingly target IoT devices. Individually, such devices aren’t very capable and thus, won’t generate any significant gains but when you’ve got an army of them at your disposal, it can be quite profitable".

The question to me becomes, "when are these AV peddlers going to stop talking about it, and do something about it'?

And please, someone enlighten me if any security company's software is tackling this issue.

 

[Brock Kane]

To be honest, I would prefer websites using cryptomining at 10-20% CPU use after getting my consent instead of ads.

Please don't give into this! Don't be a turd!

So, you're ok with paying more for your electricity, while some hacker steals your bits, just so you don't have to watch ads?

You don't mind your neighbor plugging his outdoor electric devices to your outlets so his dog doesn't crap on your lawn???

 

[Shadowboxer]

To be honest, I would prefer websites using cryptomining at 10-20% CPU use after getting my consent instead of ads.

Please don't give into this! Don't be a turd!

So, you're ok with paying more for your electricity, while some hacker steals your bits, just so you don't have to watch ads?

You don't mind your neighbor plugging his outdoor electric devices to your outlets so his dog doesn't crap on your lawn???

I’d probably give up 10-20% of my CPU than watch adverts tbh mate. And your analogy is poor, ads pay for things you would otherwise have to pay for yourself, it’s not akin to a dog crapping on your lawn.

The problem I have is that this is all being done silently against your will. But if a menu option appeared where I had to choose between ads or allowing 20% of my system to be used for mining I’d probably click on the mining option.