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Crypto Jacking (Illegal Cryptocurrency Mining) is a big threat to Africa – Kaspersky Lab

by Felix Omondi
crypto jacking

According to cybersecurity company, Kaspersky Lab, crypto jacking is a growing security threat to computer users across the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa. Crypto jacking, is the act of infecting a computer and using its processing power to mine monero without the explicit authorization or knowledge of the user.

Sometime the end user will not notice their device has been hijacked. But those who pay close attention will notice the computer fan running faster, and heating up more than it should as per the number of applications it is running. Expert users will go further and check their computer’s processor is clocking at a much higher rate; more than it should as per the tasks it is currently running.

A hijacked computer often runs slowers; since it is handly crypto mining that tends to eat up its resources, and make running other tasks slow as they share the same resources.

The Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky says the crypto jacking has risen by almost fourfold in the said region. Down from 3.5 million in 2017 to 13 million in 2018. And the security experts don’t see crypto jacking declining as more and more people adopt to the use of digital currencies.

Hackers, in this case, referred to crypto miners, use malware to gain access to a user’s computer and start running crypto-mining operations in the background. Any digital coins these hackers find they keep all to themselves. Never mind they used your computer and raked up your power bill doing so.

The Meta region is becoming more appealing to cybercriminals, with financial and malicious crypto mining attacks taking center stage,” said Senior Security Researcher at Kaspersky, Fabio Assolini. And crypto jacking crimes is increasing because “mining is silent and causes less impact than ransomware, making it less noticeable.”

 

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