What is cryptojacking? How to prevent, detect, and recover from it

tactics and poisoned websites to get your employees’ computers to mine cryptocurrencies. Here’s what you can do to stop it.

Cryptojacking is the unauthorized use of someone else’s computer to mine cryptocurrency. Hackers do this by either getting the victim to click on a malicious link in an email that loads crypto mining code on the computer, or by infecting a website or online ad with JavaScript code that auto-executes once loaded in the victim’s browser.

Either way, the crypto mining code then works in the background as unsuspecting victims use their computers normally. The only sign they might notice is slower performance or lags in execution.

Why cryptojacking is on the rise
No one knows for certain how much cryptocurrency is mined through cryptojacking, but there’s no question that the practice is rampant. Browser-based cryptojacking is growing fast. Last November, Adguard reported a 31 percent growth rate for in-browser cryptojacking. Its research found 33,000 websites running crypto mining scripts. Adguard estimated that those site had a billion combined monthly visitors. This February, Bad Packets Report found 34,474 sites running Coinhive, the most popular JavaScript miner that is also used for legitimate crypto mining activity.

“Crypto mining is in its infancy. There’s a lot of room for growth and evolution,” says Marc Laliberte, threat analyst at network security solutions provider WatchGuard Technologies. He notes that Coinhive is easy to deploy and generated $300 thousand in its first month. “It’s grown quite a bit since then. It’s really easy money.”

In January, researchers discovered the Smominru crypto mining botnet, which infected more than a half-million machines, mostly in Russia, India, and Taiwan. The botnet targeted Windows servers to mine Monero, and cybersecurity firm Proofpoint estimated that it had generated as much as $3.6 million in value as of the end of January