{"id":20368,"date":"2022-11-18T15:43:25","date_gmt":"2022-11-18T11:43:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/miners-threaten-cloud-infrastructure\/20368\/"},"modified":"2022-11-18T15:43:25","modified_gmt":"2022-11-18T11:43:25","slug":"miners-threaten-cloud-infrastructure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/miners-threaten-cloud-infrastructure\/20368\/","title":{"rendered":"Mining still a serious threat to business"},"content":{"rendered":"

As our recent expert study<\/a> shows, despite both the drop in price of many cryptocurrencies and the decision of one of the biggest cryptocoins \u2014 Ethereum \u2014 to move away from mining, malicious miners<\/a> continue to threaten business. Companies that use cloud infrastructure are particularly at risk. We explore the dangers of mining and how to protect the computing resources of a company from it.<\/p>\n

Mining is dead. Long live mining<\/h2>\n

Many predicted the end of the mining rush after Ethereum\u2019s announcement it would move from confirming transactions using the proof-of-work method<\/a> to the proof-of-stake model<\/a>. Proof-of-work requires vast computing power, while proof-of-stake needs significantly fewer participants and resources to confirm a transaction \u2014 it\u2019s several thousand times more efficient computationally. The abandonment of the proof-of-work concept, in theory, could have caused a significant decrease in mining\u2019s popularity.<\/p>\n

The long-awaited switch went ahead<\/a> on September 15, and to some extent it did indeed hit mining\u2019s popularity. For instance, the price of video cards used for mining Etherium dipped sharply as they flooded the secondary market. Those engaged in legal mining began<\/a> to either switch to mining other cryptocurrencies or to sell their computing systems or come up with other uses for them. However, this decline in activity does not extend to attackers who mine at others\u2019 expense.<\/p>\n

The fact is they were never all that focused on mining Etherium \u2014 being only their third<\/a> most popular coin. Instead, they preferred to mine Monero, which guarantees total anonymity of transactions. To produce Monero, mining is still required, but video cards are not. This cryptocurrency is best mined on ordinary CPUs, which, unlike powerful GPUs, are found in any computer. The most powerful ones work in servers \u2014 naturally, they attract attackers most of all.<\/p>\n

How miners threaten business<\/h2>\n

We\u2019ve already talked about the trouble miners can cause for the average user:<\/p>\n