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New Ransomware Strain is Locking Up Bitcoin Mining Rigs in China (zdnet.com)
A new strain of ransomware has been observed targeting Bitcoin mining rigs. ZDNet reports: At the time of writing, most of the infections have been reported in China, the country where most of the world's cryptocurrency mining farms are located. Named hAnt, this new ransomware strain was first seen in August of last year, but a new wave of infections has been reported hitting mining farms earlier this month. Most of the infected mining rigs are Antminer S9 and T9 devices, used for Bitcoin mining, but there have also been reports of hAnt infecting Antminer L3 rigs, used for mining Litecoin. In rare instances, Avalon Miner equipment (used for Bitcoin), were also reported as infected, but in much smaller numbers.
If victims fail to pay the ransom or infect at least 1,000 other devices, the ransom note threatens to turn off the mining rig's fan and its overheat protection, leading to the device's destruction.
If this happened to one of my devices, the first thing I'd be doing is attaching the fan(s) directly to the power supply. You won't get any fan regulation, and possibly a lot of fan noise, but you won't need to worry about overheating.
Also, people who write ransomware are callous scum.
And you still missed that real money isn't real. There is 0 intrinsic value. It's all made up, just like digital coins. The ONLY value associated is that which is assigned to it by those that can provide the services/good trade, otherwise, they're just meaningless digits.