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New Ransomware Strain is Locking Up Bitcoin Mining Rigs in China (zdnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the closer-look dept.

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.

26 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. How do they want to be paid? by mark_reh · · Score: 3, Funny

    Bitcoin or real money?

    1. Re:How do they want to be paid? by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 1

      The value of a currency is related to its money supply vs. the size of the economy in which that currency is traded. For instance, if your economy grows you can print more money without incurring inflation. On top of that, the value is influenced by speculators who bet on changes of the value of the currency vs. other currencies or commodities. In case of real money, it's mostly the size of the economy and the money supply setting the price. In case of Bitcoin, is pretty much all speculation. All grossly oversimplified to be sure, but that's the main difference between the value of real money and Bitcoin.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    2. Re: How do they want to be paid? by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 1

      Goods and services. In other words: GDP

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    3. Re:How do they want to be paid? by Fwipp · · Score: 2

      What a meaningless comment. Did you know that the imperial measurement system is superior to the metric one, because a mile is longer than a kilometer?

    4. Re:How do they want to be paid? by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      And you still missed that real money isn't real.

      Maybe so but that doesn't mean it's exactly equal to Bitcoin. On a scale of 0 to 10 it scores very, very close to 10 and Bitcoin only scores a 0.01 (at best).

      (judging by the number of places that you can simply walk in and spend some)

      That's what you're missing.

      --
      No sig today...
    5. Re:How do they want to be paid? by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 2

      The ONLY value associated [with "real money" - in this case, fiat currency] is that which is assigned to it by those that can provide the services/good trade, otherwise, they're just meaningless digits.

      That's true of ANYTHING, including the goods and services. The value of anything is what someone is willing to trade it for / for it.

      The thing that makes money "money" is that it a commodity that is valued by many (at roughly the same value), stable valued (in the short term) and easily divisible, so a barter of X for Y can be split (without substantial loss) into two barters - X for $ and $ for Y - , so you don't have to find somebody with a Y who wants to swap it for your X.

      And you still missed that real money isn't real. There is 0 intrinsic value. It's all made up, just like digital coins.

      That depends on the kind of money. Some of it is a commodity that has a generally recognized value. For instance, non-debased coinage: Standard sized chunks of known purity metals, stamped to indicate its composition and who certified it. Or debased coinage: Ditto but then the manufacturing-and-certifying authority changes the composition to be less valuable but keeps the designation.

      Then there is "backed paper money" - lightweight printed promises to give you something else of value (though less convenient to handle) when you ask. (The value of these is a function of the trader's estimate of the value of the backing commodity and the likelyhood that the promiser will make good on the promise.) The commodity might be anyhing: Gold, Silver, Liquor, pork bellies, ...

      But you seem to be talking about fiat currency: Paper notes or cheap token coins plus a law that says they must be accepted for payment of debts. The "backing value", to the extent there is one, is the promise of the government accepting these things (for fines, taxes, etc) and using force and/or court non-enforcement of debt collection on private creditors and merchants unless they accept the currency. The perceived value is also modulated by the estimate of how much more the government will print/stamp out, diluting the value of what is already out there.

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    6. Re:How do they want to be paid? by tomhath · · Score: 1

      it only has value because someone says it does

      I say the wadded up post-it note in front of me is money, will you give me $1000US for it?

      It's only money if other people agree that it is. Bitcoin was never money. It's just speculation, like beanie babies.

    7. Re:How do they want to be paid? by Powercntrl · · Score: 1

      The IRS says that for federal tax purposes, Bitcoin is the same as currency. That would seem to imply that Bitcoin is, in fact, money...

      The government made me pay $5 to register my god damn drone. So far, my drone flying hobby has done nothing but cost me money - it is completely unprofitable, yet "taxed" nevertheless. Uncle Sam just sees Bitcoin as an opportunity to collect more tax revenue from people who likely have more dollars than sense. I'm sure the government would put a tax on farting, if they could find a way to enforce it.

      --

      ---
      DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
  2. If you can't beat 'em, pwn 'em? by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

    Wonder if this is an attempt by someone who has control of a significant but non-majority amount of the transaction pool to artificially reduce the pool size to allow them to do a 51% attack? I'm not familiar with that side of Bitcoin or it's mechanisms so not sure if that is viable or even possible.

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    1. Re:If you can't beat 'em, pwn 'em? by TheHawke · · Score: 1

      I'd say it government, namely Beijing. They have seen BTC as a direct threat to their banking system and have taken action in the past to minimize the damage they are doing. And now, they decided to take a cloak and dagger approach to dealing with them. No surprise.

      --
      First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
    2. Re:If you can't beat 'em, pwn 'em? by mysidia · · Score: 2

      Or the attack launched by some evildoer who is also a a Bitcoin Cash or other AltCoin proponent.

    3. Re:If you can't beat 'em, pwn 'em? by ctilsie242 · · Score: 1

      Definitely feasible. Other currencies have been hit by 51% attacks and compromised with bogus double-spending transactions. Since China has 51% control of Bitcoin anyway, this could easily allow them to manipulate it by adding more currency or double-spending existing coins. And with 300 gigs of blockchain, few people are going to validate all the way to check for hanky-panky.

  3. Fan Control by nuckfuts · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  4. Any takers on the source? by TheHawke · · Score: 1

    I'd say Beijing is up to their old tricks to try to eliminate competition to their banking system?

    --
    First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
  5. Lights across China by Dan+East · · Score: 1

    And suddenly light bulbs in China got a little brighter.

    --
    Better known as 318230.
  6. Re:seems counter productive by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

    holding for ransom, locking it up so it's not running, the thing that'll produce the coins to pay the ransom

    Seems like the smarter thing to do would have been to subvert a coin every so often to a different location, since you already have control of the machine. That way it'll go undetected for a while and they'll probably make more than the ransom payout would have been.

    Maybe, as some have suggested above, this is about more than ransom money.

    It could be that they saw mining rigs as particularly vulnerable... or it could be they have a deeper motive.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  7. Re:Cue the old crowd complaining... by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

    ...about not understanding bitcoin and how it must be literally tulips...

    Actually, it would be amusing if someone created a Tulipcoin.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  8. Re:Cue the old crowd complaining... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Prepare to be amused

    https://tulipcoins.github.io

    Been a thing for a while!

  9. Re:Cue the old crowd complaining... by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

    Prepare to be amused

    I am amused.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  10. Re:Nazi faggots love Trump by Howitzer86 · · Score: 1

    Don't feed the trolls.

  11. Bitcoin will be real by WoodstockJeff · · Score: 1

    Bitcoin will be approaching "real" when you can buy the hardware to mine it and pay for the electricity to run it in bitcoin.

    1. Re:Bitcoin will be real by chiefcrash · · Score: 1

      Back in the days when nobody heard of Bitcoin, I mined a few coins using my GPU...

      As the value of Bitcoin rose a bit, I used my Bitcoin to buy a couple Sapphire Block Erupters (back when the hashrate for them was respectable). This netted me a few more coins...

      At some point, I cashed out (waaaaaay too early). The results were enough to pay my power bill for a couple months and a shiny new Nexus 7 tablet...

      Does that mean it's real?

      --
      Show me on the 1st Amendment bobblehead where the moderator touched you...
  12. Re:seems counter productive by mysidia · · Score: 1

    If it was not for a deeper motive, then why wouldn't they simply reprogram them to start diverting some mining power to benefit the attacker and
    try to avoid detection?

    The mining hardware would be much more valuable mining something for the attacker than sitting locked up waiting for a ransom --- for
    the ransom to be worthwhile, it would have to be large enough that would also make it worthwhile for the mining operator to actually erase and reprogram the
    device's firmware instead of paying that ransom.

  13. Ransomware vs Bitcoin. Popcorn! by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    So it's going to be ransomware thugs versus the Bitcoin community of child porn sites, drug traders, basement-dwelling conspiracy theorists - and yes, other ransomware developers who use Bitcoin to get ransom payments without being traced. All the scams in the world collapsing into a black hole as the rest of us applaud.

    1. Re:Ransomware vs Bitcoin. Popcorn! by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Windows ransomware? What would possess somebody to run a mining rig on Windows? I can only think of disadvantages.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  14. Good by Trogre · · Score: 1

    The fewer of these resistive heaters we have sucking otherwise useful energy and further warming our planet the better.

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife