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So guys, every time I hear a report about someone spying on me through technology, I think the government, right?And when I do, I go knee deep into conspiracy theories, start reading all my old George Orwell novels, get really paranoid looking over my shoulder for Big Brother, and I start quoting things like: Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull
And then I start thinking that maybe there's AI that we don't even know of yet that's spying on our thoughts. And when I get that paranoid, I go to bed and stare at the ceiling in the dark too scared to count sheep. Listen, y'all, my imagination is
But seriously though, guys, there might really be uninvited guests on your phone and other electronic devices though they might not necessarily be as sinister as I'm making them out to be. It might just be that unscrupulous actors are siphoning off power from your devices to mine for cryptocurrencies without your knowledge. And, like annoying parasites, once they get their suckers in, it might be near impossible to get rid of them. So let's get into it.
How do thieves mine on your phone?
So guys, do you know there are those mobile apps that promise to act as faucets, offer you these basic games were you have to do nothing but mindlessly click numbers, watch ads and wait for the coin dust to gather? Yeah, well, you might want to think twice about downloading those, especially if after downloading them you start to see things like your phone is overheating or its battery life is shorter. Might be you need a new phone, might be those apps you downloading are mining in secret.
And I know you're probably thinking a phone's mining power would hardly be worth the effort, right? But these cybercriminals are targeting millions of phones and feeding off of their processing power. And it's not just your phones either. They're coming for your devices, including your computers.
According to a recent report by Atlas VPN, cryptominers are now seen as the most common web threats, with cybercriminals from more than 170,000 unique address identified as secretly mining cryptocurrency on victims' devices in the past year alone.
Yep, so you can forget about those phishing letters from your long lost friend now stranded in England who just needs a little bit of money- specific amount inserted here, in pounds Sterling no less- to tide them over. These crypto miners have elevated, they're in your spam mail too!
And if that isn't distressing enough, here's the funny bit. It seems as though antivirus software providers might also be guilty.
In the case of the antivirus providers, however, there seems to be a little bit of the caveat. They've argued that they've told users they would be downloading crypto mining software onto their devices and insisted that those won't be activated without their express permission. They've also maintained that the built-in miner is a source of passive income for users, but they might have left out the fact that the crypto they mine is stored in their wallets and there's a withdrawal fee to access it.
Well guys, I'm about to go scrub some apps off my phone, , but I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.
Do you think hidden crypto miners is a source of concern, or is this a case of a storm in a teapot? Let me know what you think. I'm off for now, but until we meet again, please remember to be safe. Arrivederci!
