SUMMER 2019
Distributor's Link Magazine Summer 2019 / Vol 42 No3
Distributor's Link Magazine Summer 2019 / Vol 42 No3
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12<br />
THE DISTRIBUTOR’S LINK<br />
Joe Dysart<br />
Joe Dysart is an Internet speaker and business consultant based in Thousand Oaks,<br />
California. A journalist for 20 years, his articles have appeared in more than 40<br />
publications, including The New York Times and The Financial Times of London.<br />
During the past decade, his work has focused exclusively on ecommerce.<br />
Telephone: 631-256-6602; web: www.joedysart.com; email: joe@joedysart.com.<br />
HACKERS’ NEW TRICK: STEALING COMPUTING<br />
PROCESSING POWER FROM FASTENER DISTRIBUTORS<br />
In a marked shift from previous years, hackers are<br />
much more likely these days to be bent on stealing your<br />
computing processing power than embedding ransomware<br />
or other malware in your network, according to a new<br />
March <strong>2019</strong> report from IBM. (www.ibm.com/security/<br />
data-breach/threat-intelligence)<br />
The reason: It’s much safer<br />
for hackers to simply steal your<br />
computing processing power over<br />
the Internet – and use it for the<br />
mining crypto-currencies like Bitcoin<br />
-- than to get involved in planting<br />
other criminal software on business<br />
and corporate networks, according<br />
to the report’s authors.<br />
“One of the hottest commodities<br />
is computing power tied to the<br />
emergence of crypto-currencies,”<br />
says Wendi Whitmore, Global Lead,<br />
IBM X-Force Incident Response and<br />
Intelligence Services. “This has led<br />
to corporate networks and consumer<br />
devices being secretly high-jacked to<br />
mine for these digital currencies.”<br />
Adds Kevin Haley, director, Symantec Security<br />
Response: “Now you could be fighting for resources on<br />
your phone, computer or I.O.T. device -- as attackers use<br />
them for profit.”<br />
All told, the number of computer users reportedly<br />
impacted by Black Hat (criminal) mining was more than<br />
five million in 2018 – up from 2.7 million the prior year,<br />
according to a report from IT security firm Kapersky<br />
Lab (www.securelist.com/kaspersky-security-bulletin-2018-<br />
story-of-the-year-miners/89096).<br />
HACKERS HAVE A NEW TRICK – STEALING<br />
YOUR COMPUTING PROCESSING POWER WHEN<br />
YOU’RE NOT LOOKING.<br />
(ALL IMAGES SOURCED FROM ROYALTY-FREE, COPYRIGHT-FREE,<br />
CREDIT-FREE, ONLINE IMAGE LIBRARIES)<br />
Most likely, the number is actually probably much<br />
higher, given that it’s often very<br />
difficult to detect when a Black Hat<br />
miner has actually infiltrated your<br />
network or computer.<br />
The reports from IBM and<br />
Kapersky are an eye-opening shift<br />
in hacker tactics for fastener<br />
distributors, given that so many<br />
corporations and individuals are<br />
currently fixated on preventing<br />
ransomware and other malware<br />
attacks, and so few realize that<br />
hackers have now moved on to<br />
stealing computing processing<br />
power.<br />
One of the most vexing<br />
aspects of this theft of computing<br />
processing power – also known as<br />
crypto-jacking -- is that it can be so<br />
clandestine. Many hackers running the scam are often<br />
careful to steal computer processing power only when a<br />
computer or smartphone is not in use.<br />
The most careful steal power during the off-hours,<br />
when computers are on but most people who work for<br />
your fastener distributorship are sleeping.<br />
CONTRIBUTOR ARTICLE<br />
CONTINUED ON PAGE 126
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