Cryptojacking latest scare

Kochi: There is a sharp rise in mining of cryptocurrency through a process of hacking known as Cryp-tojacking, said Varun Kohli, a senior strategist with Google.

During a session on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Security here on the concluding day of the 12th edition of Cocon, the annual cyber security and hacking conference on Saturday, Mr Kohli pointed out that the biggest cryptocurrency Monero was being increasingly targeted by the hackers.

According to Mr Kohli, Monero, the open-source cryptocurrency worth around $18.50 million is in circulation and 5 per cent of it is reportedly being mined through Cryptojacking. He said the value of a single Monero is around $20-25 and around $4 million worth Monero is earned through Cryptojacking.

“Earlier, hackers used Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks, but now, Cryptojacking is replacing DoS,” he said. “New generation hackers use malwares to mine cryptocurrency, especially, Monero.” He said one could fall victim to Cryptojacking on browsing an infested website. Even the website creator may be unaware of it. The hacker could exploit the user resources to mine cryptocurrency.

Meanwhile, he also said that AI can bring proper solutions for many issues sooner as it is coming up with many new researches in the field.

Team Ardus wins 24-hr hackathon

It was a tie in the last hour of the 24-hour hackathon, a hacking contest organised as part of Cocon conference, before the organisers gave an extra 30 minutes that led to one team winning the contest with an extra 50 points.

The two teams comprising IT officials from the defence forces were tied at 600 points each when the contest ended. The organisers then chose to go for extra time rather than declaring the first team to reach those points as winners. At the end of the extra time, the team Ardus comprising Jayadeep Bodwa-dkar and Parinay Bansal defeated the team Blackhole of Wrickdev Ghosh and Bharat Shekhawat by 760 points.

They were presented with a prize money of `1 lakh. “The organisers deserve a credit for making such a tough task as it was sleepless 28-hours,” said Mr Bodwadkar of Ardus team after winning the game. The contest which started on Friday at 10 am at the Hacking Village set up for the event with around 120 contestants split into 60 teams. The time set to end the contest was at 12.30 pm on Saturday. But no one expected a tie in the final hours.  Fourteen different tasks with multiple in-built tasks were set up in the contest to test hacking skills. According to the organisers, the tasks given were very tough as half of those tasks were not even touched by the hackers.