More than 2000 different cryptocurrencies are currently available in business and FinTech applications. Cryptocurrency is a digital payment system that does not rely on banks to verify their financial transactions and can enable anyone anywhere to send and receive their payments. Crypto mining attracts investors to mine and gets some coins as a reward for using the cryptocurrency. However, hackers can exploit the computing power without the explicit authorization of a user by launching a cryptojacking attack and then using it to mine cryptocurrency. The detection and protection of cryptojacking attacks are essential, and thus, miners are continuously working to find innovative ways to overcome this issue. This chapter provides an overview of the cryptojacking landscape. It offers recommendations to guide researchers and practitioners to overcome the identified challenges faced while realizing a mitigation strategy to combat cryptojacking malware attacks.
TopIntroduction
There has been a rise in cryptocurrencies as an investment platform (Kamps & Kleinberg, 2018). According to the Statistica (Statistica., 2022) weekly report (from July 2010 to May 2022), the overall cryptocurrency market capitalization per week was around 1354.54 USD in May 2022. The most popular one is Bitcoin, a decentralized cryptocurrency that has become popular in the last decade. It is a peer-to-peer electronic currency that may be sent from one user to another without needing a trusted authority like a central bank or an administrator (Nakamoto, 2008; Toyoda et al., 2019). Unlike traditional currencies, bitcoin has two key features: 1) Transparency: a decentralized ledger (also termed Blockchain) stores publicly announced transactions, and 2) Pseudo-anonymity: the unlinkability between the pseudonyms (addresses) and the individuals (Nakamoto, 2008). The users can generate bitcoin addresses from the user's public keys at will (Toyoda et al., 2019). The users can create a unique address for each transaction. This flexibility increases privacy by creating an additional layer to keep the addresses from being linked to a specific owner (Nakamoto, 2008). Blockchain offers a broad collection of solutions synchronized by unique consensus processes, from installing public digital ledgers to supporting private and permissioned digital ledgers. Creating cryptographic communication among end-users and not deploying a centralized governance infrastructure promotes delicate interactions. Zero-knowledge proof and asymmetric key encryption prevent retroactive data change and improve individual authoritative ownership.
Figure 1. Cryptocurrencies ecosystem
In the light of decentralized ledger technology, exclusive applications of cryptocurrencies are leading toward an economic paradigm and a possible game-changer. In recent years, diversification in the investment opportunities in cryptocurrencies has sought new market alternatives for international stakeholders, policymakers, and regulators. The fine-tuned success of bitcoin ushered in a slew of innovative cryptocurrencies that use regulatory loopholes to create various financial bubbles. Even though these economic bubbles have the potential to spread highly contagious economic difficulties, their rate of financial return is at an all-time high. Because the market capitalization of these cryptocurrencies and their return rate depend on speculative projections and are very volatile, this instability exists (Vidal, 2020). The concept of Blockchain is at the heart of a significant number of cryptocurrencies because it enables peer-to-peer (P2P) fund transfers in a trustless, decentralized computing environment (Lohachab et al., 2021). Figure 1 shows the cryptocurrencies ecosystem; it is evident that emerging Blockchain and cryptocurrency-based technologies are redefining how we conduct business in cyberspace. Today, many crypto mining techniques and technologies are widely available to companies, end-users, and even malicious actors who want to exploit the computational resources of regular users through cryptojacking malware.
The process of mining, in which a group of users solves computational challenges to validate transactions and add them to the blockchain digital ledger, is the foundation of these cryptocurrencies (Stroud, 2018). Crypto mining draws investors, who are rewarded with coins for using cryptocurrencies. Dedicated hardware solutions, such as GPU and ASIC mining rigs have dominated cryptocurrency mining. This situation has begun to alter with the development of memory-bound cryptocurrencies like Monero, Bytecoin, and Ethereum. These currencies are based on memory-intensive computational puzzles, reducing the advantage of specialized hardware over commodity processors (Vries., 2018; Gohwong., 2019). As a result, the generated currencies may be mined profitably on standard computer systems, paving the way for cryptocurrency mining to become more ubiquitous. However, this rise has attracted criminals who have discovered bitcoins as a new source of earnings. They can leverage the available resources to generate revenue by fooling users into running a miner invisibly on their computers (a technique known as cryptojacking or drive-by mining) (Konoth et al., 2018).