Microsoft Korea Documents How the Cryptojacking Cyber Threats are Steadily on the Rise

Technology firm Microsoft Korea has raised a red flag on the activities of crypto jackers, citing a troubling increase in cryptojacking incidents, according to a report published on April 22 by a local English daily, The Korea Times.

The daunting revelation was announced by the security program manager of Microsoft Korea, Kim Gwi-ryun during a press conference in the capital city Seoul, which also accompanied the release of the annual Microsoft Security Intelligence Report.

Cryptojacking in South Korea

The report by The Korean Times has revealed that the cryptocurrency mining incident rate in 2018 was 0.05, which insignificant, considering the fact that it is 58% lower than the world's average.

Cryptojacking is the practice of using a computer's processing power to mine for cryptocurrencies without the owner's consent, and it is unarguably one of the most significant problems facing the cryptocurrency industry.

However, Kim-Ggwi-ryun singled out this heinous act from among other cybersecurity attack vectors detected in the country- such as the supply chain malware and the phishing attacks.

The security expert also revealed that Microsoft has detected market correlations in the fluctuating prevalence of cryptojacking, noting in a statement that:

‘'We have noticed that as the value of cryptocurrency rises and falls, so does the mining encounter rate.”

The report also revealed the difficulties that stealth cryptojacking possess to security experts.

The security experts said that Stealth cryptojacking is very difficult to detect because it primarily manifests itself into the compromised system performance due to the intensive drain on the processing power that crypto mining presents.

South Korean Exchanges Closing Shop

In related news, all is not well with the cryptocurrency industry in South Korea, as another crypto exchange recently shut down operations citing crypto winter.

As reported by bitcoinexchangeguide.com on April 18, South Korea's crypto exchange firm Coinnest has shut down its operations indefinitely.

Although the recent bear market is gradually losing its grip, some companies have not been able to shake off the massive loss that they incurred during the period and have no choice but to shut down operations and one of such companies is Coinnest. The cryptocurrency exchange was forced by circumstances to terminate its services, as of April 16.

The process which began on April 16th started with the closure of membership services, while the exchange has made it clear that all users must withdraw their funds before June 30, 2019.

To ease the pain of their numerous consumers, Coinnest decided to lower the fees for withdrawal and to lower the limits for withdrawal sums. Although, there has been no fact linking cryptojacking to the closing down of crypto firms in South Korea, cases of corruption among executives have been recorded, especially at Coinnest where two executives were accused of trading bribes for the listing of assets.