cryptocurrency mining software | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Following Apple's lead in banning cryptocurrency mining apps , Google has also updated its Play Store policy this week to ban apps that mine cryptocurrencies on users' devices in the background. However, there are countless cryptocurrency mining apps, including MinerGate, AA Miner, NeoNeonMiner, and Crypto Miner, still available on the Play Store. Cryptocurrency mining is not a new concept, but the technology has recently been abused in the past year after hackers found it a great way to make millions of dollars by hijacking PCs to secretly mine cryptocurrency in the background without their users' knowledge or consent. Due to this practice, cryptocurrency mining has emerged as one of the biggest threats , raising negative sentiments towards this alternative revenue scheme, and big tech giants like Apple and Google took strict measures to put restrictions on such apps. Over a month ago, Apple updated its App Store guidelines to ban cryptocurrency mining apps and

Due to the surge in cryptocurrency prices, not only hackers but also legitimate websites and mobile apps are increasingly using cryptocurrency miners to monetize by levying the CPU power of your PC and phones to mine cryptocurrencies. However, Apple wants to protect your Mac and iPhone battery from shady cryptocurrency mining apps, and therefore, the company has put restrictions on such apps by disallowing them in its official App Store. The company has updated the Hardware Compatibility section of its App Store guidelines, which now explicitly restrict iOS and Mac apps and ads from mining cryptocurrency in the background. "Apps, including any third party advertisements displayed with them, may not run unrelated background processes, such as cryptocurrency mining," the updated guidelines read. The update reportedly occurred last week, possibly in response to popular Mac app Calendar 2 that bundled a Monero (XMR) miner in with its premium upgrade that unlocked &

Shadow apps, a segment of Shadow IT, are SaaS applications purchased without the knowledge of the security team. While these applications may be legitimate, they operate within the blind spots of the corporate security team and expose the company to attackers.  Shadow apps may include instances of software that the company is already using. For example, a dev team may onboard their own instance of GitHub to keep their work separate from other developers. They might justify the purchase by noting that GitHub is an approved application, as it is already in use by other teams. However, since the new instance is used outside of the security team's view, it lacks governance. It may store sensitive corporate data and not have essential protections like MFA enabled, SSO enforced, or it could suffer from weak access controls. These misconfigurations can easily lead to risks like stolen source code and other issues. Types of Shadow Apps  Shadow apps can be categorized based on their interac

Remember the " Big bitcoin heist " we reported last month when a group of thieves stole around 600 powerful bitcoin mining devices from Icelandic data centers? Icelandic Police had arrested 11 suspects as part of the investigation, one of which has escaped from prison and fled to Sweden on a passenger plane reportedly also carrying the Icelandic prime minister Katrin Jakobsdottir. Sindri Thor Stefansson , who is suspected of masterminding the whole theft of almost $2 million worth of cryptocurrency-mining equipment, traveled under a passport of someone else but identified through surveillance footage. Stefansson had recently been transferred to a low-security Sogn prison, located in rural southern Iceland (just 59 miles away from Iceland's international airport in Keflavik), from where he escaped through a window early Tuesday and boarded the flight to Sweden. Prime minister Jakobsdottir was on her way to Sweden to take part in India-Nordic Summit and meet Indi

Nothing comes for free, especially online. Would you be okay with allowing a few paid services to mine cryptocurrencies using your system instead of paying the subscription fee? Most free websites and services often rely on advertising revenue to survive, but now there is a new way to make money—using customers' computer to generate virtual currencies. It was found that a scheduling app, dubbed Calendar 2, was embracing cryptocurrency mining in exchange for free access to its app premium features, but the developer has to take it down from the Apple App Store following reports that it's not working as intended. Cryptocurrency mining is not a new concept, but the technology has recently exploded after hackers found it a great way to make millions of dollars by hijacking computers to secretly perform cryptocurrency mining in the background without users' knowledge or consent. Due to this cryptocurrency mining has emerged as one of the biggest threats in recent mon