‘Cryptojacking’ hacker trend turns Canadian web surfers into cryptocurrency miners
Scores of Canadians dipped their toes into cryptocurrency mining in recent weeks — they just didn’t realize it.
A wave of so-called “cryptojacking” has been sweeping the internet, forcing unwitting web surfers into generating money for cybercriminals.
Hackers infect websites with malicious code that secretly conscripts visitors into an army of cryptocurrency miners. Cryptocurrency mining involves devoting a computer’s processing power to solving a complicated mathematical problem with digital currency offered as a reward.
The cryptojacking process is invisible and web surfers typically don’t even realize anything is happening in the background, unless they hear their computer’s fan kick in as the machine is forced to work at its full capacity. Once they leave the infected website, the cryptojacking stops.