Hackers Infect Android Phones And Smart TV's to Mine Monero

rgMekanic

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Hackers have infected thousands of Android phones and smart TVs, turning the devices into Monero miners. Chinese cyber security firm 360Netlab announced that the attack affected more than 7,000 devices in China by taking advantage of an open port 5555. The report says that scan traffic for port 5555 is growing rapidly as the ADB.Miner worm spreads.

I'm getting tired of having to write these stories. This is one of the main problems with mining in my opinion, which needs to be stopped. One way it may be prevented if hardware wallets were mandatory. I don't know how that would work with huge ASIC farms, but honestly that's their problem.

The researchers told ZDNet the hackers weren't opening the port themselves, which would have been a much more worrying attack. "The 5555 ADB interfaces of those devices have already been opened before [they're] infected," the researchers said. "We have no idea about how and when this port was opened yet."
 
Cryptocurrency is an cool exercise in computer science and distributed computing but an unscaleable solution for global commerce. The amount of compute that would required to handle global financial traffic is absurd. The power draw to do it would be absurd. But hey, everyone's sticking "blockchain" in their name. As long as the only use is making money our of nothing then this shit will continue to happen.

There are other uses for the technology and you even see MSFT getting in on it: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/solutions/blockchain/

Too bad it's all bout buttcoin.
 
Honestly, i'm waiting for the stories of games being updated and or created solely to secretly mine in the background. I mean the CPU and GPU are supposed to be busy during games.

Especially MMOs.

That would explain how Deus Ex Mankind Devided runs literally 100 FPS lower than DOOM
 
Right off the top, ADB is Android Debugging and it uses port 555 for debugging the phone from a USB connected device like a computer. the ADB tool is part of the SDK, Software Development Kit for Android, so anybody developing software for Android would use have a use for ADB and any phone they tested against would also have the port open. It's also possible that developers who are reacting to problem reports from an application user base could make use of this software to remotely troubleshoot user problems with their app. Once installed and used, port 555 is open, and until closed, it remains open to this attack.

Or that's what I am getting from it.
 
Right off the top, ADB is Android Debugging and it uses port 555 for debugging the phone from a USB connected device like a computer. the ADB tool is part of the SDK, Software Development Kit for Android, so anybody developing software for Android would use have a use for ADB and any phone they tested against would also have the port open. It's also possible that developers who are reacting to problem reports from an application user base could make use of this software to remotely troubleshoot user problems with their app. Once installed and used, port 555 is open, and until closed, it remains open to this attack.

Or that's what I am getting from it.

Having rooted a many Android phone you are completely correct
 
One day phones will have Windows Update and binary compatibility. Kinda silly that lawsuits haven't flown to make it happen.
 
that extra phone will help you get monero 0.0000001 second faster.

back in the old days, people actually had to do hard labor to mine gold.
 
Fist hijacking websites to use your computer and not it's as petty as putting parasites on your cellphone to mine Cryptocurrency?
Jesus. At what point can one just find the fuckers doing this and break their kneecaps?

Why can't they go back to the good old days and email me with news of my Nigerian relative I never met, died and left me millions and all I need to do is send them my bank account number for a money transfer?

This shit has got to end somewhere.
 
People are too damn greedy to give a rats arse about this problem. As long as they can see a way to make a buck, then it will happen. Without world cooperation (yeah,..sure,..thatw ill happen) to bust these idiots, it will go on unabated.

Just try to tell some cryptocrzed idiot they are creating more problems than they are solving, and watch them get a hernia from laughing so hard. Greed. It is a powerful thing. Combine it with entitlement and it really takes off.

I thought there already were smart phone games doing mining?
 
I hope crypto is regulated out of existence.
 
that extra phone will help you get monero 0.0000001 second faster.

back in the old days, people actually had to do hard labor to mine gold.

If you have a million devices mining .00000001 it starts to add up.
 
Lol, fist hijacking.

Gives fisting a bad name.
 
Anybody know an Android app that allows you to simply type in the number for a port and close it?
 
there is a hardware button on the side that closes all ports and running programs. ;)

I get it, but to be sure, are you saying reboot the phone and any unneeded open port will be closed until accessed again?
 
Yes, because if it wasn't for crypto people would never infect anything with malicious code.... Right

I love how crypto becomes the problem no matter what now and people act as if none of this was happening before.

You do realize people have been infecting PCs for literally decades now right? And other smart devices? Yea, those were getting hacked and used for botnets and other things well before cryptojacking was a thing. Shit back in 2012 we we're getting reports for command about certain botnets and other worms and things going through refrigerators and cameras and smoke detectors. This shit is nothing new. And once the next thing comes out everyone will move over to that.

You didn't see people complaining about encryption and saying it needs to go away once ransomware became a thing did you? No one said the internet needs to be destroyed when the first botnets and worms were coming out did they?

Just because you don't benefit from blockchain or other crypto tag a longs doesn't mean it's not a valid tech. Man, its like we're back in 2007 and on an Xbox forum and one guy suggested buying a PS3, the hate is strong here
 
Yes, because if it wasn't for crypto people would never infect anything with malicious code.... Right

I love how crypto becomes the problem no matter what now and people act as if none of this was happening before.

You do realize people have been infecting PCs for literally decades now right? And other smart devices? Yea, those were getting hacked and used for botnets and other things well before cryptojacking was a thing. Shit back in 2012 we we're getting reports for command about certain botnets and other worms and things going through refrigerators and cameras and smoke detectors. This shit is nothing new. And once the next thing comes out everyone will move over to that.

You didn't see people complaining about encryption and saying it needs to go away once ransomware became a thing did you? No one said the internet needs to be destroyed when the first botnets and worms were coming out did they?

Just because you don't benefit from blockchain or other crypto tag a longs doesn't mean it's not a valid tech. Man, its like we're back in 2007 and on an Xbox forum and one guy suggested buying a PS3, the hate is strong here

I agree right down the line ..... but it doesn't put more cards at decent prices back on the shelves so ........

I'm sure you feel people's pain no matter that they are feeling unreasonable in their angst.
 
This reminds me of Command & Conquer Generals' chinese hacker units. Why mine tiberium when you can mine monero on the internet?
 
I agree right down the line ..... but it doesn't put more cards at decent prices back on the shelves so ........

I'm sure you feel people's pain no matter that they are feeling unreasonable in their angst.

Yes, but that isn't the fault of the miners. That's the fault of the suppliers. Mining has been a thing for what, at least 6 years now, maybe longer, I got my feet wet back in 2011 and it was already a thing then. After 6 years if suppliers still can't stock enough cards to roll in the money piles I'm not sure what to say. All it would take is one manufacture putting out a shit ton of inventory and swimming in money and all of those problems would go away. If you could sell a 1080TI for 650 when every other vendor had them for 1200+ you'd be the only guy selling cards, SO MUCH MONEY. Plus, if you always had them in stock for 650 you'd kill the scalper market. 2 birds, one stone.

But that's not an issue unique to miners. Look at the Nintendo Classics systems, It was impossible to get the NES Classic and to this day Nintendo still refuses to print more free money. Took me 3 months to get an SNES Classic, so Nintendo is obviously making more of them (hence making more money) and they are learning. Not fast enough but in one product cycle they are already ramping up and collecting that sweet cash.

Supply and demand is as old as the earth itself, kind of crappy to lay all of that on the feet of Crypto and pretend like there is never outside factors or other situations before this that were the exact same.
 
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