Glossary

Cryptojacking

Cryptojacking turns your computer into a cryptocurrency mine for criminals. Your computer does all the work (and uses all the electricity), but they get the crypto. Your computer gets slow, your electric bill goes up, and you get nothing. It can happen through malware or just visiting a sketchy website.

What is Cryptojacking?

The unauthorized use of someone's computer or device to mine cryptocurrency, typically done through malware or malicious scripts that run secretly in the background.

Why Should You Care?

Cryptojacking drains computational and energy resources directly from a company's infrastructure, inflating operational costs while degrading system performance. The attack is particularly damaging in cloud environments, where hijacked resources can generate runaway billing, and it can persist undetected for long periods, making the true cost hard to discover. For security teams, the challenge lies in distinguishing malicious mining from legitimate workloads while protecting publicly accessible infrastructure—like web services and cloud storage—where attackers hide mining code.

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Real-World Example

In February 2018, a compromised third-party accessibility plugin (Browsealoud, from Texthelp) was used to inject the Coinhive cryptominer into thousands of websites, including some government sites, silently hijacking visitors' CPU power to mine Monero until the issue was discovered and the script disabled. Around the same period, attackers exploited misconfigured cloud storage and exposed cloud services to plant mining code. These cases show how cryptojacking leverages both direct infrastructure misconfigurations and trusted third-party services to scale across large numbers of victims.

How to Protect Against Cryptojacking

  1. 1.

    Install browser extensions that block crypto miners

  2. 2.

    Monitor CPU usage for unexplained spikes

  3. 3.

    Keep browsers and plugins updated

Related Terms

Malware, Browser Hijacker, Cryptocurrency

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