Crypto-jacking

Why in news?

• According to a report, Cryptojacking attacks on computer systems have gone up by 30% to 66.7 million in the first half of 2022 compared to the first half of last year.

About Cryptojacking:

• Cryptojacking is a cyber-attack wherein a computing device is hijacked and controlled by the attacker and its resources are used to illicitly mine cryptocurrency.
• In most cases, the malicious programme is installed when the user clicks on an unsafe link, or visits an infected website — and unknowingly provides access to their Internet-connected device.

About mining of crypto-currency:

• Coin mining is a legitimate, competitive process used to release new crypto coins into circulation or to verify new transactions.
• It involves solving complex computational problems to generate blocks of verified transactions that get added to the blockchain.
• The reward for the first miner who successfully manages to update the crypto ledger through this route is crypto coins.
• But the race to crack this crypto code needs considerable computing power involving state-of-the-art hardware and electrical power to keep the systems involved up and running.

What Cryptojackers do?

• Cryptojackers co-opt devices, servers and cloud infrastructure, and use their resources for mining.
• The use of ‘stolen’ or cryptojacked resources slashes the cost involved in mining.
• Cryptojacking is hard to detect and the victims of these attacks mostly remain unaware that their systems have been compromised.
• Some telltale signs are the device slowing down, heating up or the battery getting drained faster than usual.

PRACTICE QUESTION:

The term ‘Cryptojacking’, recently seen in news, refers to:

(a) Evasion of tax while trading cryptocurrency

(b) Use of cryptocurrency for funding criminal activities

(c) Hijacking of a computer devise and using it for illicitly mining cryptocurrency.

(d) Creating artificial scarcity to increase value of a cryptocurrency

Answer