Cryptojacking Spreads across the Web | 10/29/22 | Scientific American

Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cryptojacking-spreads-across-the-web/

Summary: Cryptojacking is an issue coming up more and more with the spread of cryptocurrencies. It is the act of using someone else’s computer to mine cryptocurrencies for your own gain without the other party knowing what is going on. Many times it is achieved by tricking a random person into downloading malware. The other way is by injecting the cryptojacking software into websites. By doing this they can make people cryptojack through legitimate and illegitimate websites. The software runs while people are on the website and will stop once they get off the website. Many piracy streaming websites will cryptojack because the longer they stay on the more the other party makes through cryptojacking. Other websites will open extension windows in hard-to-find areas like under the taskbar in order to cryptojack more. Some websites will do cryptojack legitimately. For example, UNICEF has the option to ask you to donate your computers processing power and electricity to mine cryptocurrency for them. Other websites will ask you to do it to help keep their website running. This is not the act of cryptojacking because they make it abundantly clear to you instead of hiding it. Cryptojacking can create damage to your computer parts and cost more and more electricity in the long run. For big institutions like universities, it can leave even bigger marks and cause more computers to be damaged and more money spent on electricity. To protect against this you can download an anti-malware software or if you see your computer running harder than it seems it should go to task manager and check if there is anything sketchy in the background. Installing software updates also can protect your computer.

3 Fun Facts:

1. You can crypto mine with your computer

2. Cryptomining can be a legit source of revenue when done by yourself, for yourself

3. Mining scripts can be very small, just a few lines of code to download a small program.