Dmitry Karpilovsky
Founder of the first community of professional crypto entrepreneurs in the CIS, Cryptonet. Entrepreneur, trader, investor, cryptocurrency consultant with seven years of experience.
To mine cryptocurrencies, the average user needs four things: powerful computer equipment, a special mining program, a reliable pool (a server that distributes the calculation of a block signature among a group of miners) and self-confidence. However, every year the process of mining bitcoins becomes more difficult, and competition increases.
Today, one transaction consumes approximately the same amount of electricity as 1.6 American families spend per day. And according to forecasts, by 2022, the electricity consumption for the production of bitcoins will be equal to the annual energy consumption of a country like Denmark.
In such conditions, it is almost impossible to earn bitcoins from your home computer alone, but alternative currencies - altcoins - are quite possible. This is why modern programmers-miners are coming up with new ways to mine cryptocurrency using other people’s computers.
Mining on someone else's hump: how attackers use computers
Wherever there are rules, there are those who break them. And the world of cryptocurrencies is no exception. Some miners do not pay for electricity by running a cable to a transformer; others smuggle video cards from China.
But most often, cryptocurrency miners use other people’s computers. In particular, in September of this year, Kaspersky Lab discovered two large networks of computers engaged in cryptocurrency mining. One network has approximately 4,000 units of equipment, the other - 5,000. As it turned out, all of them were infected with a virus, and the owners of the equipment did not even suspect that they were participating in the extraction of digital currency, helping the creators of the virus earn tens of thousands of dollars every month.
Typically, the cryptocurrencies Litecoin, Feathercoin and Monero are mined in the process of black mining. Their extraction does not require high-power equipment, and coins can be mined from ordinary home computers.
Platform usage and income
The minergate service allows you to earn various cryptocurrencies. At the same time, there are a huge number of possibilities here. Providing three types of mining (including a miner) allows you to use the most suitable method on an individual basis. Another plus is the ability to earn several currencies at the same time. The platform was created by cryptocurrency market specialists. This means the service has fewer disadvantages compared to its competitors. You can increase the profitability of mining on the service in various ways. Including a hidden form of a miner, but if desired, income can also be obtained in legitimate ways.
Read further:
Mining monero: on a video card, processor and which pool to choose.
Types of black mining
There are two main types of mining using other people's computers that hackers use.
Browser mining
The warning that visiting dubious sites can harm your computer also applies to cryptocurrencies. You just need to follow the link to the resource, the script of which contains the required code, and while you are on the site, your computer will become part of the network for generating cryptocurrency.
However, it is not only little-known sites that are at risk. In September of this year, a well-known Ukrainian media holding found itself at the epicenter of a scandal, whose users became unwitting miners of Monero. A similar accusation was brought against the American television channel Showtime.
Viruses miners
The miner virus first appeared in 2011, but since then it has continued to infect the computers of ordinary users. You can pick it up by following a link from an email or installing a dubious program. All computers with strong technical characteristics are at risk.
Viruses cause more harm to computers than browser mining because they use the computer’s power more actively. However, many more users are becoming victims of browser attacks.
What cryptocurrencies were mined?
Initially, programs for hidden mining involved the extraction of cryptocurrency “gold”. That is Bitcoin. A couple of years after the appearance of the first viruses and Trojans, it became unprofitable to use computers to mine BTC. ASIC-based farms appeared.
So, in 2013-2014. hackers switched to mining altcoins. Fraudsters preferred simply mined coins. This was due to the increased profitability of mining these coins.
As the complexity increased, the process became less profitable. Then they switched to other “coins” or began to more actively infect other devices. This was done to increase capacity and preserve or increase the mined cryptocurrency.
How to understand that your computer is infected
The only clear sign of a mining attack is the slowdown of the computer.
If this happens on a specific site, then the attackers may have entered through the browser. It is especially important to monitor whether the equipment is working properly on resources that require a long time spent, for example, on torrent trackers, sites with online games and films.
Gamers' computers are especially susceptible to attacks, as they typically have stronger graphics cards and processors.
Another auxiliary sign of a mining attack is increased electricity consumption.
Most often, antivirus programs recognize programs with miners not as viruses, but as potentially dangerous programs that worsen the performance of the computer. In fact, miners do not cause any harm other than using your resources. This is also important to pay attention to.
Popular virus programs for black mining
It's time to talk in more detail about the tools that are most often used by attackers and which ordinary users need to know about in order to protect themselves.
Trojan Miner Bitcoin
If an ordinary person on average loads his computer by 20%, then Miner Bitcoin increases this figure to 80, or even 100%. Spyware not only uses resources, but also steals information about the owner of the equipment. A characteristic external sign of the presence of a virus is a higher noise level of the video card cooler. You can get Miner Bitcoin by downloading Word documents or pictures; it is mainly distributed via Skype.
EpicScale
A program that uTorrent users noticed and which uses the capabilities of other people's computers to solve their problems. In response to the accusations, company representatives noted that the funds received through mining go to charity. However, this position is at least strange, given the lack of awareness of torrent tracker users about the use of their equipment.
It is important to know that when EpicScale is uninstalled, its executive files remain on the computer.
By the way, recently a scandal related to the mining of cryptocurrency erupted around the torrent tracker The Pirate Bay.
JS/CoinMiner
This is a type of malware that allows mining cryptocurrencies through user browsers. Most often, scripts are embedded in gaming sites and resources with streaming videos. Such resources load the processor, which allows mining to go unnoticed.
To identify a malicious script, check if it is in the list of miner scripts.
Prevention methods
During the operation of any operating system, a lot of software is installed into it and then removed. Uninstallation and registry cleaning programs, to be honest, don't do their job well. As a result, the registry turns into a garbage dump. In addition, each installed application, especially serious ones, launches additional processes, sometimes completely unnecessary for the user, and prescribes various settings to the system. And sometimes, from long-deleted programs, separate modules remain that continue to function. All this allows you to introduce any processes into the system unnoticed by the user and he will probably not notice anything in this mess.
Therefore, get into the habit of using mainly portable software. Yes, this is not very convenient, yes, programs interact worse with the operating system and with each other. But there are a lot of advantages: you don’t clog up the registry, booting and shutting down the computer is faster, because a lot of things that you don’t even suspect don’t work in hidden mode, and most importantly, the processes are clean and it’s easier to discover something new, for example, a new process that did not exist before and that consumes a significant amount of resources.
I carry everything that’s mine with me.
In general, it will be very good if people begin to be interested in how their computer equipment and the software installed on it, in particular operating systems, work. It will be great if the boundaries of knowledge of many users go beyond torrents, games and porn. It is worth finding out how the operating system works and which processes are responsible for what. If you don’t clutter up the space, it will be much easier to navigate.
But, of course, it’s easier to avoid the problem in the first place. I am not a supporter of such antivirus combines as Casper or ESET NOD32. This kind of “security” is not your protection, it is your overseer. And it’s very difficult to turn off such a benefactor, and I’m not going to tolerate some piece of hardware telling me which sites to visit and what to download from there.
By the way, regarding virus and other completely justified paranoia, I try not to store any information that is at all important to me on my PC. I keep everything on flash drives and disks. On the main flash drive I have all my work files collected - everything related to my work.
Many of the programs I work with are also there in portable form, in particular, a browser with important bookmarks and the Electrum Bitcoin wallet. Every evening I scan the system with three portable antiviruses from the “combat kit” and make a backup password-protected archive from a flash drive. Then I pull it out of the port and put it under the pillow. This is my guarantee of the safety of important information.
Every evening I scan the system
All your favorite movies, music and photos are also on separate media. Essentially, I have a clean system with a minimal set of programs and drivers. True, there is a simple antivirus 360 Total Security - this, by the way, is a very boring dude who constantly suspects something. But I like it - I listen to it, but when I get tired of it, I just cash in on “The Way Out.” This is enough to turn off the “caring mommy”. But when I need backup, it works for me at full capacity, and I make sure that for some reason it doesn’t suddenly turn off.
So that no “adware” or other evil spirits decide to install themselves quietly, I have a standard firewall enabled and another small but clear utility – WinPatrol Monitor. When something tries to register in the registry without my knowledge, the software starts to really yap and displays a window where it is described what and where it is trying to break through.
I quite rarely have the question of what and where to download - most of the sites have been tested for a long time. Therefore, I see no need to use dubious resources for which I have long ago developed an instinct. But if I download something, for example, software from an unknown manufacturer, of course I don’t check it with antiviruses - but I run it in the sandbox, which is included in the 360 Total Security kit. I'm not even interested in its behavior - the fact is that some viruses have a self-destruction mechanism built into them, in case there is an attempt to study it in a sandbox. And that's what I need.
In conclusion, I will say this for those who do not consider hidden mining to be something harmful. Whatever the supporters of “gray methods” say, this is in any case a dishonest game. Someone, without asking me, installs something on my car without paying a penny for it first. I could mine a little myself, so to speak, “for cookies,” but I don’t want to once again load the equipment into which I have invested a lot and collected it exclusively for conducting journalistic activities. And I’m not happy that some Vasya will quietly mine crypto on it (in kopecks) and load my already overheated video card!
