Russian County Website Used for Cryptojacking

Cryptocurrency industry today is filled with scams and issues that need to be addressed. Blockchain technology, the underlying tech behind digital currencies, allow the confirmation of transactions without the aid of third parties. In fact, crypto mining is a great way to participate in the industry without investing directly in cryptocurrencies. Instead, you simply buy hardware and pay for electricity that covers the mining operations.

However, cryptocurrency mining has a number of issues. For instance, you have the high amount of energy required to run powerful computers that solve complex algorithms. It has been said that it Bitcoin mining consumes as much energy as Ireland. In addition to this, you have hacking incidents that involve not only crypto exchanges but also the entire network, specifically the 51 percent attack.

Recently, a county government website for Khaborvsk, Russia was attacked in order to force visitors to provide processing power that can mine cryptocurrencies. The website has around 600 visitors daily and has been used mainly to provide information about the county administration’s work as well as official events.

According to the county administration IT officer Vyacheslav Kovalenko, since the end of May, visitors of the said website were redirected to a malicious website that secretly installs a mining software into the computer. The malware was said to be active for around 10 days before it was removed Thursday.

It was recommended, that in order to avoid the same problems from occurring, to make use of pop-up window blockers.

Not The First Crypto Mining Problem in Russia

In February, there was a report where employees at All-Russian Scientific Research Institute for Experimental Physics, the one in charge in nuclear research in Russia, were arrested for using the supercomputers in order to mine cryptocurrencies.

Last December, Transneft employees were also caught mining at their workplace. There was even a time when an operator in Vnukovo airport was caught installing a mining farm within the premises of the airport.

Also, last September, there were two IT managers who worked for the Crimea government that were fired mainly for installing mining hardware in the government building.

However, crypto mining doesn’t always create problems. In fact, UNICEF has come up with a strategy in order to raise funds using this method. Instead of asking people for money, what they did was to ask visitors of their website to donate their computational power in order to mine Monero, a cryptocurrency popular for its anonymity.

Rules Regarding Crypto Mining

Different countries have a different take when it comes to crypto mining. One of the reasons why regulators are concerned over crypto mining activities is due to the power that this activity consumes. Quebec, for instance, lifted its ban recently to crypto miners because of fear of missing out on the potential profits that the industry has to offer. However, with hundreds of applications, Quebec decided to halt new applications and even considered a different rate for those who are going to mine cryptos.

There are many issues surrounding crypto mining. From issues relating to cryptojacking to people who are misappropriating a company’s resources to mine cryptos, these are just some examples of the problems brought about by the industry.