Cyber crypto criminals hacked into a series of HP PCs to mine cryptocurrencies based on reports from multiple media outlets. An anonymous company owned the PCs. What was strange about the hack was that the hackers mined the Raptoreum digital currency. The token is ranked among the top 1,000 digital currencies based on market cap.
The Raptoreum is built on the Ghostrider algorithm, a combination of PoW and PoS consensus mechanisms. The hackers earned nearly $115K worth of Raptoreum tokens due between December 9 and December 17, 2021. The network’s security team only discovered the malware following the disappearance of the host from the Raptoreum blockchain on December 17.
The Loophole Exploited By The Hackers
The hackers exploited a loophole, called the log4shell, through which they gained full control of the device. The log4shell is developed on the log4j, a commonly used database library of Apache-based applications. Even though the project’s security team discovered the malware late, they were still able to disable the activated crypto-mining virus.
The malware is well-known among large corporations as it is a commonly used malware. Despite varying system specifications, hackers often find a way to use the malware on many HP systems. According to pc security experts, the affected system can keep running code even if it isn’t connected to the internet.
The log4j malware is so serious that hackers can use it to infiltrate a machine no matter how well protected the machine may be. Furthermore, the malware can collect information and run a virus script without accessing the system directly.
The Raptoreum algorithm works best on core systems, but they rarely work on ASIC devices. One of the best HP systems for Raptoreum mining is the HP 9000 pc with AMD EPYC configuration.
Why The Hackers Targeted HP PCs
The Ghostrider algorithm uses the AMD mainframe because of its huge L3 collection. Despite being expensive, Raptoreum miners use the HP AMD EPYC node PCs because it has 256M of buffer on systems with at least 32 cores. The hackers sold most of the mined Raptoreum tokens on Coinex, earning nearly $115K.
Unfortunately for these hackers, the value of the unsold tokens has dipped massively since the hacking was discovered. It is no wonder the hackers haven’t sold the remaining hacked tokens again. The hackers may be hoping for a surge in the crypto’s price before selling the remaining ones.
PoW blockchain has been why many governments are against the legalization of cryptos. The mining of the tokens of such blockchains is said to consume huge amounts of energy and poison the environment.
The crypto industry, particularly the DeFi sector, has been a subject of crypto hacks in recent times. One of the most recent and largest hacks in the crypto industry was the hack on the Ronin network, during which the network lost nearly $650M.
