Content area

Abstract

Cryptojacking is the exploitation of victims' computer resources to mine for cryptocurrency using malicious scripts. It has become popular after 2017 when attackers started to exploit legal mining scripts, especially Coinhive scripts. Coinhive was actually a legal mining service that provided scripts and servers for in-browser mining activities. Nevertheless, over 10 million web users had been victims every month before the Coinhive shutdown that happened in Mar 2019. This paper explores the new era of the cryptojacking world after Coinhive discontinued its service. We aimed to see whether and how attackers continue cryptojacking, generate new malicious scripts, and developed new methods. We used a capable cryptojacking detector named CMTracker that proposed by Hong et al. in 2018. We automatically and manually examined 2770 websites that had been detected by CMTracker before the Coinhive shutdown. The results revealed that 99\% of sites no longer continue cryptojacking. 1\% of websites still run 8 unique mining scripts. By tracking these mining scripts, we detected 632 unique cryptojacking websites. Moreover, open-source investigations (OSINT) demonstrated that attackers still use the same methods. Therefore, we listed the typical patterns of cryptojacking. We concluded that cryptojacking is not dead after the Coinhive shutdown. It is still alive, but not as attractive as it used to be.

Details

1009240
Identifier / keyword
Title
Is Cryptojacking Dead after Coinhive Shutdown?
Publication title
arXiv.org; Ithaca
Publication year
2020
Publication date
Mar 13, 2020
Section
Computer Science
Publisher
Cornell University Library, arXiv.org
Source
arXiv.org
Place of publication
Ithaca
Country of publication
United States
University/institution
Cornell University Library arXiv.org
e-ISSN
2331-8422
Source type
Working Paper
Language of publication
English
Document type
Working Paper
Publication history
 
 
Online publication date
2020-03-16
Milestone dates
2020-01-07 (Submission v1); 2020-02-20 (Submission v2); 2020-03-13 (Submission v3)
Publication history
 
 
   First posting date
16 Mar 2020
ProQuest document ID
2335355468
Document URL
https://www.proquest.com/working-papers/is-cryptojacking-dead-after-coinhive-shutdown/docview/2335355468/se-2?accountid=208611
Full text outside of ProQuest
Copyright
© 2020. This work is published under http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.
Last updated
2020-03-17
Database
ProQuest One Academic