From the course: Cybersecurity Foundations

Cryptomining

From the course: Cybersecurity Foundations

Cryptomining

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- [Lecturer] One of the forms of cyber attack, that we'll come across, is to take over a computer and use it to run what's called mining attacks on a cryptocurrency wallet. This is known as cryptomining or cryptojacking. It's not illegal to carry out cryptomining, quite the opposite. It's a legitimate process that's part of the cryptocurrency system, which requires users to verify transactions by running complex calculations. The result of successfully completing the calculation is that the user gets paid for doing it is cryptocurrency. A new cryptocurrency is generated into the system. However, rather than use their own resources, cryptominers take over our computer and use it to run these calculations. A single computer isn't sufficient to run the calculations, so it becomes just one of many zombie computers in a botnet, which shares out the computation. As a pure cryptomining attack, the malware doesn't damage our files or attempt to steal our credentials, but it does use our system resources without our authorization. However, in a 2017 survey of cryptomining attacks, Trend Micro found that 20% combined cryptomining with other forms of attack, including remote code execution and SQL injections. This makes cryptomining something that we don't want on our systems.

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