Watch out! You can be a target of cryptojacking

In form of pop-up ads, emails, hackers use your computer’s speed to attack

Next time your computer or laptop or tablet or mobile phone gets loud, hot and slow, check if you are becoming a target of the new form of hacking called cryptojacking.

Even though you are careful not to download suspicious, malware-laden apps, you may be inadvertently mining crypto currency like Bitcoin if you are a victim of cryptojacking.

In the form of pop-up ads and emails, hackers are using your computer’s speed aka processing power for this kind of attack. There is a significant rise in malicious extensions appearing for browsers like Google Chrome, Mozzilla Firefox and Opera, among others.

Cybercriminals are known to target popular websites which lakhs of users visit every day. Frequent users of Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest will often see links containing malicious scripts.

Ads are all over the internet and through these ads, such cryptomining scripts can be added as well. Furthermore, a single webpage you visit can take up to 4.5 hours of your battery time if you keep the tab open.

These extensions or links, while providing some functionality, insert hidden crypto-currency mining scripts that run in the background without the user’s consent.

The mining scripts are not complicated but rather only have a couple of lines of malicious code. These hackers called coin-miners are using your computer’s CPU to earn money for someone else.

Sometimes, apart from overheating batteries, these scripts can make your devices unusable.

Cryptojacking is one of the most used attacker toolkits, indicating massive threat to cyber and personal security. Over the past few months, there has been a rise in malicious extensions that appear to provide useful functionality on the surface. As the ransomware market has become overpriced and overcrowded, Cyber criminals are rapidly adding cryptojacking to their armoury.

THERE IS a significant rise in malicious extensions appearing for browsers like Google Chrome, Mozzilla Firefox and Opera. CRYPTOJACKING is a rising threat to cyber and personal security. Now you could be fighting for resources on your phone, computer or IoT device as attackers use them for profit. — TARUN KAURA, director at Symantec

Next time your computer or laptop or tablet or mobile phone gets loud, hot and slow, check if you are becoming a target of the new form of hacking called Cryptojacking.

According to a Symantec Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR), detection of coin-miners on endpoint computers increased tremendously — by 8,500 per cent — in 2017. Furthermore, India ranks second in the Asia-Pacific- Japan (APJ) region, and ninth globally in terms of crypto mining activities.

“Cryptojacking is a rising threat to cyber and personal security. Now you could be fighting for resources on your phone, computer or IoT device as attackers use them for profit. People need to expand their defences or they will pay the price for someone else using their device,” said Tarun Kaura, director at Symantec.

The massive profit incentive of cryptojacking puts people, devices and organisations at risk of unauthorised coin miners siphoning resources from their systems, further motivating criminals to infiltrate everything from home PCs to giant data centres.

Experts suggest that users always keep their software upto-date as most users do not tend to regularly update, especially android users. They even advise users to be cautious with emails especially with Microsoft Office email attachment that advise you to enable macros to view its content. Backing up your data is the single most effective way of combating a ransomware infection.