Cryptojacking activities continues to rise

According to reports coming from the cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, there has been been 13 million cryptojacking attempts so far this year. The report notes that the most cryptojacking attacks are carried out in Turkey, Africa and in the Middle East regions.

The primarily, cryptojacking malware attacks involving mining of cryptocurrencies through the gathering computer resources from their victims is the most common method used by these crypto attackers.

The hijacking of resources from a computer itself in order to mine cryptocurrencies is not completely outrageous. However, users are expected to get paid for their resources being utilized.

According to Kaspersky Lab, a Moscow-based multinational cybersecurity and anti-virus provider, cyber attacks involving the mining of cryptocurrency have increased nearly fourfold in the Middle East and Africa alone.

These kinds of attempt’s have pushed up the cryptojacking to about 13 million this year, which is up from 3.5 million in 2017.

Malware scripts can be used in order to gain access to user’s PCs to mine cryptocurrencies. The script then runs as a background process on the personal computer of victim until noticed.

These malicious scripts can take up a lot of CPU power, resulting in a very slow PC, and in some cases may damage the device due to overloading the processor.

According to Fabio Assolini, a senior security researcher at Kaspersky, digital currency mining attacks can be carried out silently

” The META region is becoming more appealing to cybercriminals, with financial and malicious cryptomining attacks talking center stage. Mining is silent and causes less impact than ransomware, making it less noticeable.”

The Kaspersky denies misconduct allegations

The company has however, been placed on restrictions on allegations of misscounduct by the US.

However regardless of whether the cybersecurity firm decides to persue any legal relief, the company has stated that they will continue to focus on providing quality services to US-based customers while improving performace to clients from around the world.

A represtative from the company also mentioned that Kaspersky has never engaged in any type of illegal conducts and that the company is in accordance with any appropriate rules and regulations.

In late November, researchers at Kaspersky found that unlicensed or pirated software can be used by cryptojackers in order to install cryptojacking scripts for mining crypto.

Monero is one of the most known cryptocurrencies used for cryptojacking attempts as it’s algorithm could use CPU which mines cryptocurrencies from the victim’s PC until the Proof-of-work starts pushing more towards a GPU based processing unit.

Cryptojackers have been able to use ransomware tactics over the years to invade the computers and devices of individuals which later result in them demanding cryptocurrencies in return.

Kaspersky encourages crypto users and miners to stay safe and learn how to protect themselves from cryptojacking activities but more importantly, on how to recover funds.

What are your thoughts on how to combat cryptojacking? Please feel free to leave your comment down below.