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Globally-acclaimed automated cybersecurity solutions provider, Fortinet has issued a security alert that cybercriminals are now targeting media devices and unsecured IoT devices for cryptomining as many of them use powerful GPUs to decode and transcode content in high-resolution formats.
Media devices are especially attractive targets due to their use of powerful GPUs combined with lax home security. And because they tend to always be powered on, there is a lot of downtime that can be exploited without detection.
Cryptojacking is a new technique where cybercriminals sneak malware into computers and other media devices and then hijack the computer's processing power to perform crypto-mining. The number of reported cases is rising and cybersecurity experts are warning individuals and businesses about the danger.
"Cryptojacking has become a growing concern. Cybercriminals aren't satisfied with the available supply of vulnerable servers and PCs to hijack in order to mine their favorite cryptocurrency. So, they have added another rich source of computational horsepower to their arsenal - IoT devices," said David Maciejak, Director of Security Research, Fortinet.
Due to the explosion in the Internet of Things (IoT), which is projected to connect up to 20.4 billion devices globally by 2020, more...