What is Cryptomining?
Cryptomining, cryptocurrency and BitCoin are likely chief among many terms that people have heard in relation to virtual currency, though many may not understand what they are. In essence, BitCoin is a currency that is online. It is the most popular one, but there are many different kinds of virtual currency, much like there are different kinds of physical money (dollars, pounds, yen, etc.). These virtual money systems are collectively referred to as cryptocurrency. Cryptomining is a process of getting those currencies, similar to how people used to mine for gold as a form of gathering currency.
How Does It Work?
In order to get many cryptocurrencies such as BitCoin, they are given out for verifying transactions. This is because, unlike "physical" currency, there is no organization like Visa or the US Treasury backing up the process. It is a process that is intended to prevent people from copying the currency to get an unlimited amount.
In order to complete the process of verifying transactions and receiving the crypto-payment for it, an extremely complex math problem must be completed. These problems take computers that are extremely advanced quite a bit of time to figure out - if they can do it. It is also a competition, so if one computer doesn't solve in time to verify transactions, another can and any other is out of luck and back to square one on new transactions.
How Does This Impact Me?
The process is risky with no guaranteed payoff, but the best way to try and ensure success is to increase the resources available to the computer and/or get more computers. This is where the average person can come in.
Those seeking to add resources can look to infect a computer. Often times this will be through a fake application or program that gets installed on a device. This allows a bad actor to effectively cryptomine using the infected computer, ultimately getting them more cryptocurrency. This benefits them, obviously, but pulls resources from your own computer, making is extremely slow or non-functional for your own purposes.
What Can I Do?
What could be considered the good news about this is that not much additional work needs to be done. While this threat is not necessarily after your files, info or direct payment, they do often look to exploit the same areas that other viruses use like spoofed emails, faked websites and phishing attacks. Maintaining an anti-virus platform as well as adding things like filters or an entire Unified Threat Management platform can also assist in reducing the chance of an occurrence.
In most, but not all cases, these programs can be rather easily removed and do not damage your device as they need your device intact to continue mining. Simply let your IT team know of the breach so that they can handle it.
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