Gray mining - what is it?

According to cybersecurity experts, the number of people wishing to make money illegally at the expense of others will only grow. Illegal or “gray” mining is a new type of cybercrime, and it is quite safe for the criminals themselves. Today's realities are such that more and more people are trying to mine, but this is a very energy-intensive process with expensive equipment. Therefore, miners are coming up with increasingly sophisticated ways to reduce their costs and increase income.

Essentially, hidden mining is an automatic program that mines cryptocurrency on a computer unnoticed by the user. Gray mining software uses computer resources, earns digital currency and replenishes the hacker's wallet, and users pay electricity bills. But since many machines are included in the chain, each one accounts for thousandths of digital currencies. The more computers are connected to the network, the greater the income of the attacker. The number of such virus programs is constantly growing.

There are two methods of “gray mining”. First: the miner program is downloaded directly onto the computer and uses its power. For this use, the computer must first be infected, so this method is labor-intensive and rarely used.

The second option is the so-called “browser mining”. Attackers infect websites and you can become an “assistant of an unknown miner” while you are on it. Scripts built into the site begin to mine. They can pirate a computer like this for months. This is much simpler and the criminals gain the necessary power due to the number of visitors to the site.

Possible symptoms of infection

If, under normal load on the processor and video card, the computer works in hysterical mode, slows down, and freezes - this is a reason for concern and checking the computer. The danger is that the malware remains invisible to many antivirus programs and is therefore not blocked. In the same way, the computer may not respond to hidden browser mining.

Be careful if you do not want to work for gray miners.