Some Viruses are Bitcoin Miners

[ssaj1074]

I work in the IT industry and constantly find infections on customers pc's that are hidden bitcoin miners. I just wonder why they make viruses out of them instead of hidden services that run. It's not that hard to create one.

[orsotheysaid]

How can't they notice there is something seriously wrong when you are infected with that? When your CPU is always busy doing something the CPU usage would show up as high in the taskbar revealing the miner executable. Its easy to see imo.

[b!z]

I work in the IT industry and constantly find infections on customers pc's that are hidden bitcoin miners. I just wonder why they make viruses out of them instead of hidden services that run. It's not that hard to create one.

What are you talking about? "Viruses" are an outdated concept. Many malware use hidden services. If they're mining, they're still going to be using processing power.

[Mitchell]

How can't they notice there is something seriously wrong when you are infected with that? When your CPU is always busy doing something the CPU usage would show up as high in the taskbar revealing the miner executable. Its easy to see imo.

The good one's only mine when the computer isn't used for a while. So they are barely noticeable.

[Taras]

These were probably definitely a lot more profitable one or two years ago. Now they're only around because they don't know how worthless they are.

[Shunak]

Botnet is the correct word, sometimes they are vpn, other time are miner, etc etc...

[tomvlad80]

These were probably definitely a lot more profitable one or two years ago. Now they're only around because they don't know how worthless they are.

When you scale it to thousands of computers mining on their graphics card + CPU, with free electricity... there's no ongoing expense to the mining. Anything you get is a profit.

[Vod]

These were probably definitely a lot more profitable one or two years ago. Now they're only around because they don't know how worthless they are.

When you scale it to thousands of computers mining on their graphics card + CPU, with free electricity... there's no ongoing expense to the mining. Anything you get is a profit.

It's not free electricity.  The people you steal from have to pay for it.

[cassimares]

These were probably definitely a lot more profitable one or two years ago. Now they're only around because they don't know how worthless they are.

When you scale it to thousands of computers mining on their graphics card + CPU, with free electricity... there's no ongoing expense to the mining. Anything you get is a profit.

It's not free electricity.  The people you steal from have to pay for it.

Agree, and it also reduce the life of the CPU..

[naypalm]

botnet hashing isn't even worth it any more. However It would be worth it to hijack those giant ASIC farms in China.

[Suarez]

Hidden services are also easy to find. Any average user can see if their CPU usage is too high.

[lepirate]

Hidden services are also easy to find. Any average user can see if their CPU usage is too high.

Most people I know wouldn't even notice. And if they did, they'd have no idea why.

botnet hashing isn't even worth it any more. However It would be worth it to hijack those giant ASIC farms in China.

I don't know, aren't there any alt-coins that can be worth CPU-mining these days?