{"id":10307,"date":"2018-02-19T10:36:28","date_gmt":"2018-02-18T23:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/?p=10307"},"modified":"2018-02-19T10:36:28","modified_gmt":"2018-02-18T23:36:28","slug":"protecting-servers-crypto-mining-malware","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/protecting-servers-crypto-mining-malware","title":{"rendered":"Protecting Servers From Crypto-Mining Malware"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you didn’t have enough to protect your servers from\u2014such as hardware failure, user error and ransomware\u2014there’s now a new threat on the rise.<\/p>\n

It’s called crypto-mining malware. The short explanation is if this malware makes it onto your server, it will hog all your resources to mine crypto-currencies<\/a>. This process is known as\u00a0cryptojacking<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It probably doesn’t sound that bad compared to all the other things that can befall your machines. After all, it’s not like ransomware<\/a> where you’re being asked to pay thousands of dollars, or a virus that damages your data and systems.<\/p>\n

The problem is, there’s a reason someone wants to hijack your system and mine crypto-currency on your<\/em> machine instead of their machine. And it’s exactly the reason you don’t want this sort of infection.<\/p>\n

What is Crypto-Mining Malware?<\/h4>\n

You may have heard of crypto-currencies, and how they’re a digital currency that’s soaring in value. But where does it come from?<\/p>\n

The short story is basically from solving equations. Crypto-coin miners use special software to solve math equations, and are issued a certain number of coins in exchange.<\/p>\n

So these are not the sort of equations you can solve by getting out a pen and paper and crunching some math. And solving one pays out like striking gold. That’s why you have people who have set up crypto-coin mining ‘farms’ – imagine rows and rows of graphics cards linked together, all trying to solve these equations.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sounds quaint so far – just some hardware strapped together doing some math. Harmless, right? But there’s some big problems with it.<\/p>\n

Firstly, the equations gets harder and harder over time – the easy ones are, of course, done first. That means mining becomes harder – and chews up more processing power. More processing power leads to hardware burning out at an incredible rate, and an obscene electricity bill. A lot of people run these farms in nations where electricity is cheap, like in Latin America.<\/p>\n

But you’re still paying money, both in hardware costs and electricity. So someone thought ‘why not make other people pay the costs to mine our bitcoin?’<\/p>\n

Enter crypto-mining malware – a form of malware that infects your system and gets it to mine crypto-coin. Not for you, of course, but for the person who infected your system in the first place.<\/p>\n

Why Crypto-Mining Malware is Bad for Your Server<\/h4>\n

Cryptojacking is a threat to all devices. If run on mobile phones, the sheer\u00a0heat generated from mining can physically warp<\/a>\u00a0an infected device.<\/p>\n

While hardware damage of this type is really unlikely for your server, it is a problem if your resources are hijacked.\u00a0That means if your server is running slow and this is at odds with its actual load, it might be infected with crypto-mining malware.<\/p>\n

The other thing to be concerned about is having to foot the\u00a0electrical bill that someone else doesn’t want to pay for crypto-coin mining.<\/p>\n

How to Protect Against Crypto-Mining Malware<\/h4>\n

Crypto-mining malware may be a new form of malware, but it still needs to infect your system through the same routes. This means it\u00a0is going to access your server through a weak point. This might be social engineering (tricking a user to click on a link, spear phishing<\/a>, etc), abusing a known exploit in out-of-date software<\/a>, or brute force.<\/p>\n

Put in place your front-of-house protections such as firewalls and anti-malware software, and also engage in regular user training. On the back-end, you need to have backups in place<\/a> so you can recover should this kind of ransomware compromise your systems.<\/p>\n

Don’t rely on just one solution to protect you against this threat. Make sure you have an array of defenses, and a contingency plan for if your system is infected anyway. Performing a bare-metal recovery<\/a> with an image backup should be there as your last resort if you can’t uninfect your compromised system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hackers are infecting business servers with harmful crypto-mining malware which can affect your systems. Here’s how to prevent it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10322,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[666,667,668,634],"class_list":["post-10307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-support","tag-bitcoin","tag-cryptocoin","tag-cryptomining-malware","tag-featured"],"yoast_head":"\nProtecting Servers From Crypto-Mining Malware - Cyber Resilience Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.backupassist.com\/blog\/protecting-servers-crypto-mining-malware\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Protecting Servers From Crypto-Mining Malware - Cyber Resilience Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hackers are infecting business servers with harmful crypto-mining malware which can affect your systems. 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