Black mining: how to find out what your PC is using scammers?

Fraud in the network is growing and recently the topic of "black" mining, which is also gaining momentum, has been actively discussed. The recent scandal around large sites that use scripts for hidden mining through the processors of ordinary visitors caused a storm of conversations, and we could not keep silent about this problem. Is it really true that each of us can become a part of the global machine for the extraction of cryptocurrency and not even suspect about it? Is it really so, let's try to figure it out in the new article of the Profit-Hunters portal.

What is hidden mining?

Pockets and burglars are slowly disappearing and replaced by a new generation of criminals - this time from cyberspace. Crimes in the network have become more sophisticated and sophisticated, they are difficult to calculate and punish the perpetrators. This permissiveness attracted many who want easy money to the sphere of technology, and the active attention of criminals attracts the crypto currency. Internet money was invented with noble goals, but alas, we must admit that for cybercriminals this is one of the favorite means of payment.

About hidden mining started talking about two or three years ago, but this topic did not cause a general resonance until now. What is the essence of fraud? Black miners, in contrast to decent earners, do not use their computing power and do not even resort to cloud mining - they exploit our PCs with you, earning tens of thousands of dollars a month for free.

Viruses-miners

In 2011, for the first time, a virus was found that connects the infected PC to the pool and it extracts coins into someone else's wallet. For several years, while the problem was not actively discussed, black miners earned not only on corporate computers, but also on the machines of ordinary users. All they needed was to introduce the virus on the PC, and then he himself did all the black work. To pick up such harmful software it is possible and nowadays, and with the big ease, after all it is enough to download something and even simply to click on the unknown link in a spam-letter. In no time your PC will not be quite yours and will begin to work hard, but you will have to pay more for electricity and wonder why it suddenly slows down the processor.

Since mining on the processor and video card is not actual for all crypto-currencies, the recently emerged Monero and Zcash are especially popular among black miners. These anonymous coins are not only susceptible to mining on a PC, but also hide their newly-minted owners from encroachments by law enforcement. If we talk about what computers most like black miners, then the answer is obvious - modern gaming machines that have good characteristics, and most importantly, a powerful video card.

According to one of the domestic antivirus vendors, at the beginning of 2017 they were able to identify two major mining networks, which included about nine thousand infected computers. Their owners for a long time had no idea that they were helping someone to obtain a crypto currency, and scammers, meanwhile, earned a good salary. As of August 2017, this company identified over 1,6 attempts to introduce a virus-miner into user computers.

Browser Mining

Viruses-getters, although they are actively being introduced, are slowly losing their positions, because new ways of hidden mining have appeared in the arena - directly through the browser. If you need a specific action from you to infect your PC with a virus - downloading or navigating by reference - then browser miners are completely shameless. You just need to get to the site, in the script of which the corresponding code is registered, and you instantly become a workhorse for the site owners.

If you thought that this problem can not touch you in any way, because you do not go on dubious sites, then this opinion is mistaken. As practice shows, even large and respected sites, which no one would ever have suspected of such atrocities, are illegally exploiting our PCs. Recently, for example, a number of Ukrainian news and sports resources were calculated in hidden mining with a huge audience of users. The most interesting thing is that they were caught by an ordinary user, who noticed almost 100% CPU load when going to the site. In the wake of the sensational statement, there followed an excuse for these very sites, which spilled all the blame on "one of the partners." That's so simple you can use other people's PCs and get yourself a monero, and then just blame everything for some kind of left face and no responsibility for this will follow.

If we compare black mining through the browser with viruses-getters, then we can note that the effect of malicious programs is more - the virus more actively uses the power than the script does. But at the same time, a compromised site has a large number of users who become victims, just by making a transition to it.

Interestingly, the fact that browser mining has caused mixed opinions in the Internet community. It would seem that the illegal use of another's PC without the knowledge of users should have caused resentment, but some such a phenomenon does not seem negative. In particular, users who support hidden mining, call it "payment for the use of the site." In any case, there are a lot of other ways to monetize and resort to mining crypto-currency through another's PC, without putting the owner of equipment in the know - this is not the most noble and honest earnings.

How to protect yourself from black mining?

The search for those to blame for black mining, as practice shows, is a useless and thankless task, and therefore it is better to prevent and exterminate this phenomenon. Before you figure out how to protect your computer from other people's encroachments, you should find out if a malicious virus has already reached your PC? Or maybe your favorite site has been making money on your capacities a long time ago?

To notice that you have become someone's farm for mining, you can by incorrect work of technology. For example, the computer began to slow down a lot, while you do not put any super-serious tasks before it. Or a similar picture can be observed on a particular site, which indicates the penetration of intruders directly through the browser. Typically, special care should be taken at sites that involve a long time - for example, resources for watching online movies, gaming forums, torrent trackers, etc.

Measures to protect against black miners suggest the following:

• Refuse to download unlicensed products, do not go through questionable links and do not use activation keys from unofficial sources.
• If you have a laptop from Apple, then you are not afraid of browser miners, and setting the option to download software only from the AppStore, you prevent infection with viruses and reduce the possibility of attack to zero.
• Install an anti-virus on your PC and update it regularly.
• Use the user rights - for daily administrative actions you are unlikely to be useful, and without them installing any programs and making changes to existing ones, without your knowledge, will not happen.
• If your PC is pretty slow, call the task manager and check if your program is loading any processor on 90-100%. At the same time, do not think that if there is nothing strange in the task manager, then there is no virus either - it can behave very secretly and not use the entire processor power (if the viruses are combined into a common network).
• Build utilities that not only protect the system from viruses, but also report changes to the registry and monitor the processes.

If no methods of dealing with hidden miners help, and you are confident that they exist, you will have to turn to specialists or reinstall the operating system. In any case, such machinations should not be closed, even with an eye to the fact that, in fact, the direct damage to miners you do not. First of all, you are insolently profited by you, spit on the legal right of ownership.