‘Cryptojacking’ up by 269% in the first half of 2022: SonicWall Report

According to a report by SonicWall, ‘Cryptojacking’ has risen by 269% in the first half of this year.

The report has stated that cyberattacks in the finance industry have increased by five times compared to the retail sector.

There were major changes in the year 2022 in sectors targeted by crypto-jacking. The three most affected sectors – Government, healthcare, and education saw a drastic decline in attacks which fell to 78%, 87%, and 96%, respectively, in H1 2022.

What are Cryptojacking and its effects on sectors?

Cryptojacking is a cybercrime where a criminal secretly uses a victim’s computing power to generate cryptocurrency. A hacker does it by implanting a piece of software that goes undetected.

According to Terry Greer-King, SonicWall Vice-president for EMEA, “It [cryptojacking] has a lower potential of being detected by the victim; unsuspecting users across the world see their devices get unaccountably slower, but it’s hard to tie it to criminal activity, much less point to the source.”

As per the report, the overall cryptojacking attack increased to 66.7 million in H1 2022. However, the average percentage of victims targeted by crypto-jacking in H1 2022 was lower than in H1 2021.

Also, the fall in cryptojacking in Q2 is in line with the data recorded in recent years and is known as the ‘cryptojacking summer slump.’

Therefore, based on these reports, SonicWall is expecting the attacks to remain slow in Q3.

Afterword

The Government has been cracking down ransomware operators aggressively by creating awareness. This has led the hackers to turn to cryptojacking which is less riskier and goes undetected.

One of the examples is that of the AstraLocker ransomware that turned to cryptojacking amid the government’s crackdown.

As long as there is silent cryptocurrency mining for making money, cryptojacking will continue.

And, it is highly likely that more ransomware will turn to cryptojacking, as per the reports.