Hackers have been busy over the past two weeks, with one of the latest involving internet cafes inChina.
Chinese law enforcement reported that the culprits hacked into 100,000 computers and used them to mine $800,000 worth of cryptos. Internet cafes in 30 Chinese cities were hit. Sixteen people were a part of the hacking group.
Let’s discuss further.
Coin of choice
The coin of choice for these hackers was Siacoin. The Siacoin network uses distributed storage resources and rewards participants monthly based on the proof of their storage capacity.
We’ve reported on the coin maybe not being the jazziest of the bunch when it comes to altcoins.
We told you how Siacoin’s price may not grow to much higher levels, especially given that the asset is quickly traded back into Bitcoin. At the time of reporting this in February, we noted that owning the token was a long-term play.
We also noted that Siacoin’s total supply is more than 33 billion coins, and that’s not designed to command a very high price.
Hackers’ scheme
Either the hackers didn’t know this, they didn’t care, or they saw something beyond what observers of the token see.
Interesting about their move is that Chinese computer maintenance firms reportedly planned the entire scheme with the hackers to pull it off.
By developing malware, the hackers were able to infiltrate the computer systems and automatically and solely mine Siacoin. Chinese police explained that this is where the computer maintenance firms came into play. They installed the malware.
Red flags
Workers at the internet cafes that had been hit noticed several red flags that indicated the mining activity was going on. Those flags included higher bills for using their computers, and increased CPU usage rates, which caused computer speeds to slow.
They alerted police, and the culprits were arrested. Here’s an excerpt from the police statement:
“From October of last year to April of this year, Rui'an police evacuated Yunnan, Hunan, Sichuan, Jiangxi, Guizhou, Zhejiang and other places and seized another 12 criminal suspects, respectively, and they allegedly provided programs and tools for illegally controlling computer information systems. The crime of illegally controlling computer information systems was transferred to prosecution. At present, the case is still under further investigation.”
This article appeared first on Cryptovest
