Cryptocurrency mining is one of the most essential parts of blockchain ecosystems which also allows the establishment of profitable business models. However, there are some security risks associated with this activity that miners need to be aware of.
In this article we’re going to touch briefly the most important ones and introduce some of the best ways to keep your mining operations secure from hacks.
Cryptocurrency mining requires the use of powerful computers and specialized hardware to solve complex mathematical problems. This process is known as “proof of work” and is used to verify transactions and create new blocks on the blockchain. By doing this, miners are rewarded with cryptocurrencies related to the blockchain to which they’re adding blocks to. This process, while highly profitable, can also be exploited by malicious actors. For example, hackers can gain access to the miners’ computers and use them to mine cryptocurrency without the miner’s knowledge. Hackers can also use the power of the miner’s computer to attack other networks or steal data.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF NOT INVESTING IN CYBERSECURITY
Miners, like most businesses adopting a similar business model, enjoy the highest profitability when they’re online as much as possible. This fact, alongside their high need for electricity, makes having a “safety net” for power generation a very smart move.
Cybersecurity is no different. When a miner is targeted by a hacker, there are multiple consequences that stop the mining company from doing its routine job in order to defend its assets and infrastructure. This has bad implications on the efficiency of the business, and while atmospheric events that can affect the power grid can be predicted, hackers act without sending you a notification announcing their arrival.
CryptoArmor managed to develop a differentiated list of services and products in order to satisfy every need in every solution of every miner.
THREAT DETECTION AND RESPONSE
Considering that miners run 24/7 in order to increase their operating efficiency, hackers have an incredibly wide window to perform an attack. With this in mind, CryptoArmor developed an impeccable XDR software (Extended Detection and Response) capable of detecting threats and anomalies in real-time (monitoring activity).
This is an example of “Proactive Cybersecurity Strategy”, which we consider a must-have of every blockchain-related business. This strategy allows the company to defend itself in order to avoid an hack from happening rather than dealing with its consequences and trying to fix the damages.
This software allows CryptoArmor’s experienced team to monitor miners’ systems and infrastructure to detect anomalies and possible intrusion. Once a threat is detected, our team quickly and carefully elaborates an action plan to stop the hacker on the spot.
Threat Detection and Response is highly helpful for the kind of hacks that are not visible and loud from the very beginning, like phishing scams.
This kind of scams, which is also one of the most popular, starts by sending deceiving links to people and computers who have a direct access to the mining infrastructure or the databases of the company targeted. The hacker does this with the goal to collect key information that will be used to enter illegally the system he wanted to penetrate and exploit. The hacker can get in in a very silent way, without making any alarm sound unless specifically prepared for this (like CryptoArmor’s XDR software) by considering remote accesses, log file detections, configuration changes, downloads, edits to projects and data and more.
This is the part included in “detection”, which keeps multiple indicators under control in order to identify anomalies. Once the anomaly is identified, the “response” part starts with CryptoArmor’s team directly acting on the targeted system to exclude the hacker from it as quickly as possible.
The ROI of this kind of service is focused on maintaining the mining operations efficient, protecting the mined assets from being stolen and ensuring investors a safer return.
PENETRATION TESTING
This is another layer of a tailored cybersecurity strategy.
Practicing a penetration test allows CryptoArmor’s team to understand which vulnerabilities are currently present in miners’ systems that an hacker would be able to exploit. We do exploit them too but not for malicious purposes. In fact, while we exploit the vulnerabilities we found in miners’ systems and infrastructure, we take note on how our intrusion is handled by already existing cybersecurity teams (if any) and then create a thorough report of the code that must be fixed along some “best practices” to be prepared when an hacker comes.
INCIDENT RESPONSE
CryptoArmor strongly believes in the application of a proactive cybersecurity strategy in order to prevent hacks from happening, but when they do happen we come from help fast.
The experienced incident response team helps contain, respond and remediate security incidents to contain the damage done by the hacker. It’s important to consider that security events happen even for organization with the most mature security programs.
With this service, CryptoArmor’s goal is to remediate the threat, help the miners get back to an operational state and prevent any further damage. Once the threat is mitigated, the investigation team does a full review to share with the miners’ engineering/security team, review the findings together and prepare a step-by-step plan to learn from the incident and get to work to prevent it from happening again.
During these events it’s important to have the entire company understand what really happened, especially the management, the board, law enforcement and insurance providers. This is why CryptoArmor provides extensive documents for all the needs.
BLOCKCHAIN ANALYTICS
One of the key characteristics of the blockchain is the high degree of traceability it offers.
When it comes to dealing with customers and other organizations, this tech offers important insights in order to discover potential threats not just miners’ operations but also to their own ethos. The high degree of anonymity involved offers strong privacy, which should not be an obstacle from understanding if the organization that miners are about to deal with is a terrorist group or a malicious player with the intent to harm the miner itself or any other player involved.
Thanks to the software and expertise put on the table by CryptoArmor and its partners, we are able to protect miners from exposing themselves to interactions with organizations that go against their culture and ethics of operating. An incredibly deep and detailed screening of the wallets related to the parties and organizations involved allows us to have a clear picture of the transactions, their purpose and if one of the parties is a potential threat or has interacted with malicious parties/terrorists before.
CryptoArmor is a cybersecurity software company that helps protect web3 and blockchain enterprises. CryptoArmor also offers blockchain Cybersecurity-as-a-Service that builds proactive security strategies in order to keep your business and customers data safe, as well as incident response capabilities to help organizations experiencing ongoing attacks. CryptoArmor’s threat protection software helps monitor, detect and prevent hacks with real-time intelligent threat detection for web3 security events. CryptoArmor is headquartered in Austin, Texas.
Request a connection inside CryptoArmor by sending an email at: info@cryptoarmor.net
