SUMMER 2019

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THE DISTRIBUTOR’S LINK
JOE DYSART HACKERS’ NEW TRICK: STEALING COMPUTING PROCESSING POWER FROM FASTENER DISTRIBUTORS from page 12
Other hackers are especially crafty in camouflaging
mining programs as legitimate software. Kapersky Labs,
for example, has uncovered a mining program that
looks like an Adobe product installed on your computing
device -- complete with a fake Adobe icon, a fake Adobe
executable file and a fake Adobe digital signature,
according to Evgeny Lopatin, a security expert at the IT
security firm.
“Malware, especially cryptominers, continually evolves
to avoid detection, often hiding in memory or delivering
malicious code directly into the memory of a system,”
adds Jim Gordon, general manager, Intel Security.
The impact on individuals and fastener distributorships
can be significant. Computer power theft generally
results in a slowdown in computing performance while
the theft is underway, making it more difficult to work on
your device and decreasing
your overall productivity.
Computers can also
become unstable during a
theft. Plus, hackers hijacking
computers for mining often
have no qualms driving
your computer processors
and supporting systems at
maximum speed. That often
results in shortening the life
of the devices or overheating
batteries.
This is why computers hijacked by Black Hat miners
often have their fans running at maximum speed -- the
fans are trying to cool down computer processors
running hot at maximum speed.
In addition, the results of the thievery show-up in
inflated electricity bills. Plus, added costs also show up
for fastener distributors using cloud connections that are
compromised by the thieves – bills for cloud CPU usage
can be much higher.
“The massive profit incentive puts people, devices
and organizations at risk,” says Mike Fey, president and
COO, Symantec.
Unfortunately, the problem of computer processing
theft will most likely be with us as long as cryptocurrencies
like Bitcoin, Ethereum and Monero remain
popular, Haley adds.
That’s especially true when the value of cryptocurrencies
soar. While the early value of a Bitcoin
was at times less than a penny in 2010, the price of
a single Bitcoin soared in value to $20,000 by 2018
(www.coindesk.com/price/bitcoin). That value has since
dropped to approximately $5,000. But even at that rate,
the coins are still apparently worth thieving for.
Hackers discovered the market in Black Hat mining
as crypto-currencies burgeoned and grew to rely on
thousands of computers across the world to maintain
their systems.
CRYPTO-JACKING CAN SERIOUSLY IMPAIR
WORKER PRODUCTIVITY.
Essentially, the currency systems need those
networks to verify all the transactions associated with
digital coin transactions and to perform overall auditing
of their systems.
Scores of legitimate
computer networks – or
White Hat miners -- regularly
perform this work and are
paid in new, digital crypto
currency ‘coins’ after they
complete and pre-agreed
amount of auditing. That’s
why the computer network
operators are called ‘miners:’
Their work as auditors for
the currency systems enable
them to ‘mine’ newly created crypto currency coin as
payment for their work.
Black Hat miners do the same work as their legitimate
counterparts -- but with one major difference: Instead
of using their own computer networks, they unleash
malware onto the Web that transforms thousands of
computers, smartphones and other computer devices
into a mining zombie network.
Together, that stolen processing power is used to
mine crypto-currency.
Currently, IT security experts say fastener distributors
should be on the lookout for two types of Black Hat
crypto-mining. The first comes in the same format as our
old friend, malware.
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