Mining for a stranger? How about a no?
Trick and Cyber threats on the cyber world never seems to end, because it just keeps on evolving. Another thing to watch out for on the list of unseen threats through the eyes of our unsuspecting users is what we call “Cryptojacking”. Due to the rise and popularity explosion of the digital currency, crypto mining became famous especially to technical junkies of all colors including the black hat users.
Since cryptocurrency mining is open for all, cyber hackers has used the technology by exploiting scripts and notably apps to mine digital currency for them. To be specific a JavaScript miner for the Monero Blockchain is being used for mining the Monero cryptocurrency by embedding it on websites so that visitors of the site can mine for them via the visitor’s browser which uses the CPU of the machine to solve mining algorithms for the hacker which is set to credit the hackers crypto wallet.
Taking advantage of the Javascript on browsers that have enabled Javascripts are often the victims without the knowledge and consent of the visitors of the webpage, this is no different than fake antivirus and adware based on browsers that uses Javascript. So far this undisclosed mining activities are popularly affecting unsecured sites where hackers can easily inject them, the same trick used for Phishing attacks, however the Javascript is injected on an existing webpage while phishing sites are added as an additional webpage.
No personal information has been reported yet from cryptojacking attacks, however they can slow down your computer and add a bit to your electricity bills due to the mining activities while on the webpage and/or browser extensions that got hijacked into your computer. Yes, 3rd party browser extensions that can mine using a hidden Coinhive miner script can greatly affect your computer performance in which has the same approach of adware and fake antivirus notifications.
We suggest that users should be careful on the internet by visiting only secured and known sites that won’t offer you anything to download, because downloading suspicious 3rd party files from unsecured sites may tag along a browser hijacker that can mine using the coin hive javascript.
