DevOps Articles

Cryptojacking: Free Money for Attackers, Huge Cloud Bill for You

Cryptojacking attacks can cost victims hundreds of thousands of dollars with minimal effort from attackers. Cryptojacking is when threat actors use stolen cloud resources to avoid paying for the necessary servers and power, the cost of which typically outweighs the profits. Cryptojackers make $1 for every $53 their victim is billed.

When planning a cryptojacking campaign, the threat actor must consider which cryptocurrency to mine and which compute infrastructure to target.

Mining privacy coins like Monero on CPU instances is usually the most effective approach for threat actors.