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A24 TECHNOLOGY
Saturday 30 June 2018
How your smart fridge might be mining bitcoin for criminals

By ROBERT STEVENS ing. That is worth almost First, crypto-jacking scripts
LONDON (AP) — Is the web $150 million dollars and require little skill to imple-
browser on your phone doesn't count mining that ment. Ready-made com-
slower than usual? It could occurs through browsers. puter code that automates
be mining bitcoin for crimi- In the majority of attacks, crypto-mining is easy to
nals. hackers infect as many de- find with a Google search,
As the popularity of vir- vices as possible, a method along with tips on the vul-
tual currencies has grown, experts calls "spray and nerabilities of devices.
hackers are focusing on pray." Second, crypto-jacking
a new type of heist: put- "Basically, everyone with is harder to detect and
ting malicious software on a (computer processing is more anonymous than
peoples' handsets, TVs and unit) can be targeted by other hacks. Unlike ransom-
smart fridges that makes crypto-jacking," said Ismail ware, in which victims have
them mine for digital mon- Belkacim, a developer of to transfer money to regain
ey. an application that pre- access to their computers
So-called "crypto-jacking" In this Feb. 7, 2018 file photo, a neon sign hanging in the window vents websites from mining blocked by hackers, a vic-
attacks have become a of Healthy Harvest Indoor Gardening in Hillsboro, Ore., shows virtual currencies. tim of crypto-jacking might
growing problem in the cy- that the business accepts bitcoin as payment. As a result, some hackers never know their computer
bersecurity industry, affect- Associated Press target organizations with is being used to mine cur-
ing both consumers and large computing power. In rency. And as currency
organizations. Depending only by installing malicious jacking cases soared from what they believe might be generated by crypto-jack-
on the severity of the at- software. It can also be 146,704 worldwide in Sep- the biggest crypto-jacking ing goes straight into a
tack, victims may notice done through a web brows- tember to 22.4 million in De- attack so far, Checkpoint hacker's encrypted wallet,
only a slight drop in pro- er. The victim visits a site, cember, according to anti- discovered in February that the cyber-criminal leaves
cessing power, often not which latches onto the vic- virus developer Avast. It has a hacker had been exploit- less of a trail.
enough for them to think it's tim's computer processing only continued to increase, ing a vulnerability in a serv- Both Apple and Google
a hacking attack. But that power to mine digital cur- to 93 million in May, it says. er that over several months have started to ban ap-
can add up to a lot of pro- rencies as long as they are The first big case emerged generated over $3 million in plications that mine virtual
cessing power over a pe- on the site. When the victim in September and cen- Monero. currencies on their devic-
riod of months or if, say, a switches, the mining ends. tered on Coinhive, a legiti- Crypto-jackers have also es. But Hron, the Avast re-
business's entire network of Some websites, including mate business that let web- recently targeted orga- searcher, warns that the risk
computers is affected. Salon.com, have tried to site owners make money by nizations that use cloud- is growing as more every-
"We saw organizations do it legitimately and been allowing customers to mine based services, in which a day devices are connect-
whose monthly electricity transparent about it. For virtual currency instead of network of servers is used ed to the internet — from
bill was increased by hun- three months this year, Sa- relying on advertising reve- to process and store data, ovens to home lighting sys-
dreds of thousands of dol- lon.com removed ads from nue. Hackers quickly began providing more computing tems — and that these are
lars," said Maya Horowitz, its sites in exchange for us- to use the service to infect power to companies who often the least secure. Hron
Threat Intelligence Group ers allowing them to mine vulnerable sites with miners, haven't invested in extra said that cheaply made
Manager for Checkpoint, a virtual currencies. most notably YouTube and hardware. Chinese devices were par-
cybersecurity company. Industry experts first noted nearly 50,000 Wordpress Abusing this service, crypto- ticularly easy to hack.
Hackers try to use victims' crypto-jacking as a threat websites, according to re- jackers use as much power Some experts say new
processing power because in 2017, when virtual cur- search conducted by Troy as the cloud will allow them techniques like artificial
that is what's needed to rency prices were skyrock- Mursch, a researcher on to, maximizing their gains. intelligence can help get
create — or "mine" — virtu- eting to record highs. crypto-jacking. For businesses, this results a faster response to suspi-
al currencies. In virtual cur- The price of bitcoin, the Mursch says Monero is the in slower performance and cious software.
rency mining, computers most widely known virtual most popular virtual curren- higher energy bills. That's what Texthelp, an
are used to make the com- currency, jumped six-fold cy among cyber-criminals. Martin Hron, a security re- education technology
plex calculations that verify from September to almost A report by cybersecurity searcher at Avast, says that company, used when it
a running ledger of all the $20,000 in December be- company Palo Alto Net- besides the rise in interest in was infected with a crypto-
transactions in virtual cur- fore falling back down to works estimates that over virtual currencies, there are jacker, said Martin McKay,
rencies around the world. under $10,000. 5 percent of Monero was two main reasons for the the company's chief tech-
Crypto-jacking is not done The number of crypto- mined through crypto-jack- rise in attacks. nology officer.q

Beyond politics: Facebook to

release limited info on all ads

NEW YORK (AP) — Face- Facebook "page," which is the 2016 election. Fake ac-
book says it will release typically the public profile counts from Russia gamed
more information on all ad- of a business, organization Facebook's systems to try
vertisements running on its or public figure. Facebook to influence the U.S. presi-
service. The move is part of will also publish information dential elections, and the
a broader effort to encour- on when pages were creat- company is trying to avoid
age "transparency" in its ed and any name changes similar problems in upcom-
operations. they've undergone. Face- ing contests. Facebook,
The company said Thurs- book did something similar however, won't archive
In this March 29, 2018, file photo, the logo for Facebook appears day that it will let everyone with political and election- general advertisements as
on screens at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York's Times Square. see all ads run by a given related "issue" ads following it does with political ads.q