Recently, we’ve seen crooks using the sort of techniques typically attributed to nation-state, spy-service, secret-squirrel attackers.
However, instead of sniffing around carefully for days, weeks, months or years to see what secrets, passwords, intellectual property or whatever else they can get…
…these crooks go straight at money-making schemes.
Examples include the WannaMine worm, which uses WannaCry’s exploit-based spreading techniques to steal your CPU power and electricity to go cryptomining, and the SamSam ransomware, where crooks simultaneously encrypt as many of your computers as they can in the hope of squeezing you for a bigger payout.
We went on Facebook Live to explain how this new wave of cybercrime usually unfolds, and to give you Five Ps to protect yourself:
(Can’t see the video directly above this line, or getting an error such as “no longer available”? Watch on Facebook instead.)
Note. With most browsers, you don’t need a Facebook account to watch the video, and if you do have an account you don’t need to be logged in. If you can’t hear the sound, try clicking on the speaker icon in the bottom right corner of the video player to unmute.
LEARN MORE ABOUT CRYPTOMINING AND CRYPTOJACKING
Lance W
The dollar is backed by gold, just wondering what backs cryptocurrency?
Paul Ducklin
As far as I know, the US dollar hasn’t been “backed by gold” (other than because some of the economic wealth of the US state consists of gold) since the mid-1970s.
What backs cryptocurrencies is the value people are willing to ascribe to them. That’s it, really.
delayedthoughtengineering
The dollar technically hasn’t been backed by gold (or anything else except the faith and credit of the USA government) since 1971. Furthermore, redeeming gold with legal tender stopped in 1933, and silver stopped in 1968.
However, don’t let that worry you, since 90% of all money is merely digital, and not just legal notes worth less than the paper they are printed on.
Plus, there is no law currently against any other tender from being used in any USA territory. If you want to buy stuff with bottlecaps on American soil, that is fine, as long as someone will sell it to you for that. In effect, legal tender’s only real “backing” that is better than cryptocurrency is the government, which is as dubious as cryptocurrency, depending on who you ask.