Cybersecurity Report: Cryptocurrency Threat, Solutions, and Analysis

This report addresses the escalating threat of illicit cryptocurrency mining, a growing cybersecurity risk for both enterprises and individuals. It highlights the increasing value and prevalence of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Monero, which attract malicious actors exploiting devices like web browsers, IoT devices, and networks to steal processing power. The report details the types of threats, including crypto-jacking and the use of cryptocurrencies for illegal activities, along with the degree of harm caused by these operations, such as impacts on business operations, energy consumption, and performance. The report also explores possible solutions for mitigating these threats, including identifying abnormal network traffic using machine learning, monitoring CPU activity, and searching DNS logs for cryptocurrency-related strings. The report emphasizes the importance of proactive cybersecurity measures to combat the evolving landscape of cryptocurrency-related threats.

Running head: CYBERSECURITY
CYBERSECURITY
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Abstract
In the last few years, there has been an increasing threat of illicit cryptocurrency mining. It tends
to represent an increasing value of common cybersecurity risk for both enterprise and other
individuals. The value of these cryptocurrencies is growing and its use is becoming more
prevalent. Various malicious cyber actor is making use of large number of devices like web
browser, internet of things, mobile devices and proper network infrastructure for stealing and
processing of power to cryptocurrency.

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Type of Threat
Cryptocurrency like Bitcoin and Monera have been considered as a mark of increasing
adaptation by various individual and organization (Gladden, 2015). With the passage of time it is
becoming a mainstream of method for conducting online transaction through online mode along
with investment. There has been a growing demand which has driven the whole value of
cryptocurrency for proper height with a value of bitcoin around 20000 dollars per coin in the
year of 2017 (Corbet et al., 2018). Anything in the world which comes up monetary value can
easily attract various criminal activity. As soon as the given activity is created, various
cryptocurrencies can be used like a tool for purchasing various illegal activity and other services
related to internet. It is mainly due to presumed anonymity of all kind of transaction with the
various transaction with the provided cryptocurrency provided (Nica, Piotrowska & Schenk-
Hoppé, 2017). There are some kind of underground market in the dark web which sells a large
number of things like drugs, stolen data, malware or even zero-day exploits. It mainly enables
the various actors to make use of actors and various trade cryptocurrencies and also pay for
ransoms in various ransomware attacks. It is mainly being used by cyber actors for purchase and
its maintaining of computing infrastructure for any kind of illegal cyber operations.
Degree of harm caused by threat
Cryptocurrencies are mainly created through a method known as mining. It is the digital
currency which is mainly awarded to various individual or groups. It mainly leverages certain
number of computing processing of power which is needed for solving some complex
mathematical equation (Corbet et al., 2018). In the last few years, there has been an increase in
the value of the various cryptocurrencies and malicious actors. They have increased their
attempts to some of the unlawful use of computer infrastructure by making use of mining

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operation. Illicit cryptocurrency mining makes use of some of the method of crypto jacking by
making use of methods of cybersecurity by different parts of cybersecurity industry and media. It
can be used for stealing victim processing power for producing revenue which can be used for
understanding various criminal activity. These particular operations can easily bring huge
amount of cost to organization time and money due to its impact various business operation,
energy consumption, and lastly performance (Harlev et al., 2018). A major number of illicit
mining makes use of unsophisticated kind of attacks which can easily leverage various spam
email campaign, phishing and lastly exploit tools or even direct exploration. A large number of
exploits are used for illicit mining-based target which is known as vulnerabilities in which
patches are readily available.
Possible Solution for mitigating or Eliminating type of cyber Threat
A large number of methods can be detecting and obstructing Illicit mining operation and
malware like
 An identification needs to be done for good traffic along with making use of machine
learning or other technologies like artificial technologies (Gladden, 2015). It is mainly
used for identifying non-typical behavior and providing proper kind of baseline for
various legitimate based network traffic.
 A monitoring needs to be done for any kind of abnormal consumption for any CPU based
activity (Nica, Piotrowska & Schenk-Hoppé, 2017). At the time of dealing with less
sophisticated actors, it can be easily used for any kind of mining operation.
 A proper kind of search should be made with respect to DNS logs for any kind of string
text (Harlev et al., 2018). It is mainly related to cryptocurrency mining like search for
bitcoin, pool, Monera and lastly Zcash.

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References
Corbet, S., Lucey, B. M., Urquhart, A., & Yarovaya, L. (2018). Cryptocurrencies as a Financial
Asset: A Systematic Analysis.
Gladden, M. E. (2015). Cryptocurrency with a conscience: Using artificial intelligence to
develop money that advances human ethical values.
Harlev, M. A., Sun Yin, H., Langenheldt, K. C., Mukkamala, R., & Vatrapu, R. (2018, January).
Breaking Bad: De-Anonymising Entity Types on the Bitcoin Blockchain Using
Supervised Machine Learning. In Proceedings of the 51st Hawaii International
Conference on System Sciences.
Nica, O., Piotrowska, K., & Schenk-Hoppé, K. R. (2017). Cryptocurrencies: Economic benefits
and risks.