Research: Cryptojacking is virtually extinct

Cybersecurity company Malware bytes releases report on the 23rd of April stating illegal crypto mining or crypto jacking against consumers is “essentially extinct.”

Per the report, after the shutdown of in-browser mining service coin hive in early March- when the team made claims that the project had become economically inviable - crypto jacking against consumers has significantly decreased. At the same time, there has been an increase in such attacks targeting businesses from the last quarter.

Also over $2.3 million coins were stolen this year from Bitcoin holders who use Electrum wallets on a mac by a Trojanized version of the wallet, reported by Malware bytes.

Crypto jacking is the use of a computing device for mining cryptocurrency without the knowledge of the device owner. Some common effects experienced by users being “jacked” are a slowdown, more heat is generated and shorter battery life. Arguably, privacy-centric coin Monero (XMR) is seemingly preferable for such attacks because of its ability to mine it on lower-tier hardware.

The United States cybersecurity firm Symantec found a spike in a new crypto mining malware that mainly targets enterprises.

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