the It is the old game of cat – and-mouse game between the burglar and castle makers. The lock makers developed the most sophisticated lock and then it takes a couple of weeks ago, and the burglar has cracked this. In the age of the Internet and the computer technology, software companies are the locksmith and the Hacker the intruder.

Max Halder
On the 25. January 2019 BTC$3.554,66 0.14% part Facebook Twitter LinkedIn xing mail

The ingenuity of the modern burglar is amazing. Victims of their shenanigans were mostly End-User of Wallets such as Electrum or other Apps such as “CoinTicker” opened a back door in Apple devices. Under the concept of crypto jackings another wave broke. This is the undetected Install Mining Software on computers. The computing power of the alien device is then used by the attacker to mine crypto-Coins. Here, too, the End-User of PCs and Laptops were the victims.

Now Bitmain affected

According to the Chinese news Agency Yibenchain the Antminer from Bitmain are now affected. In doing so, the models S9, T9, and probably L3. The Chinese company Bitmain is not only the leading manufacturer of Mining Hardware, and in particular of ASIC-miners, called Antminer, but operates with the Antpool is also one of the largest Mining Pools. In addition, there is evidence that the Bitmain competitor Canaan Creative and their Avalon Miner, said on Yibenchain. That the Problem is already since August 2018 is not known to prevented the Virus called H-Ant to spread further.

The Trojan horse

If one makes the error diagnosis of the affected device, so a screen connects, appear to be rather awkward lines in English and Chinese:

“I’m H-Ant. I’m not going to your Antminer drain, unless you spread the Virus for so long, until I see 10 infected IP addresses, and there is a total of 1,000 affected devices. I am able to both fan as well as overheating protection of your Antminers off. As a result, would burn either your device or, worse, your whole house.“

Then one is faced with a choice:

“Click on the Download Firmware Patch Button to our Client download with your IP address and the Update, run your Antminer Software. Then your Miner will be infected. You can put the infected machine into a Mining room, around the infection, or others in your network to install the Patch. Alternatively, you can pay 10 BTC, and the attack is over.“

All that

The Chinese news page 8btc Jiang Zhuo‘he asked, the founder of the Mining Pools btc.top to Ant H. He explained that the Virus H-Ant landing on an Overclocking software on the devices. Such Software is widespread in most of the Mining Pools, even if the manufacturer advise against it. You can increase actually maximum performance. So far, only Chinese miners are affected. Jiang Zhuo‘he assumes that the malicious Software was spread via the Chinese Google-equivalent Baidu.

Read also: bearish sentiment in China: More layoffs at Bitmain

For the entire network, he can see, however, no great danger. The “Hashpower of the Bitcoin network has a strongly decentralised character, and it is very hard to figure out where the Miner actually.” Furthermore, solutions for infected devices are already in the network. A Reflash of the SD card of the Miners, and the subsequent reinstallation of the clean Software the Virus could be eliminated. A Reflash is a little more complicated formatting process. The lock makers have already beaten back.