Just when you thought there wasn’t anything to steal from your website, those darn hackers are a step ahead of you – again. This time, it’s your computing power, and that of your site visitors.

WHY COMPUTING POWER?

Cryptocurrencies can be “mined”. I won’t get into detail on what this entails, but fundamentally, cryptocurrency mining requires a lot of computing power. That’s where your website comes in. With a little piece of code, hackers can exploit not only the computing power of your hosting company’s network, but also the computing power of your website’s visitors. This kind of malware has been found on approximately 1.65 million users of the Kapersky Labs’s security software.

This problem isn’t just limited to small business websites. Enterprise networks that aren’t secure are also a prime target. It’s easy to see why. A large botnet of compromised computers engaged in cryptocurrency mining can make tens of thousands of dollars every month with little to no effort on the part of the hackers. Clearly, when one can make this kind of money anonymously, doing mostly nothing, there’s a significant incentive for hackers to get hacking.

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?

If your website gets hacked, you can expect to see significant performance hits as your host’s server CPU resources get diverted to mining activities. Additionally, you’ll be responsible for potentially distributing the mining malware further to your site visitors. In short, the only benefit to this is to the hackers.

Pay attention to your website security. There are plenty of resources available to help secure your website, most of them available for less than $1 a day. It’s easy to do and can help protect you against existing and emerging threats to your online presence.