Sweden has seen a surge of cryptojacking attacks, with a in the last quarter of 2017. This is twice the global growth rate for the same period, and more than the managed in the whole year!
Cybersecurity threats are a growing global concern, and rapid developments in cryptocurrency have made this type of hacking the most lucrative. The increase in cryptojacking correlates with a decline in ransomware, suggesting thieves are moving with the tide as digital currency establishes itself.
Instead of stealing your private information, cryptojackers steal computer processing power through malware that can mine cryptocurrency remotely. This is most commonly achieved by covertly taking control of the background processes of browsers and apps.
Cryptojacking soared by 8,500 percent in 2017, and a suggests that the practice has become more prevalent due to “a low barrier [to] entry- only requiring a couple lines of code to operate.” Low reporting rates of these sorts of crimes are also tempting cybercriminals.
Cryptojacking Overtakes Ransomware
, in particular, has caught the attention of the media, a process in which a website adds code to its page that uses visitors web browsers to perform the calculations needed to mine. This might not seem like an issue, but the calculations require significant computing power and can push CPUs to their limit.
One of the sites recently hijacked for mining was that of the Swedish Police Force, one of the thousands of websites to fall prey to a script that mined on the computers of all visitors. Despite being conducted on such a large scale, and harvesting a vast amount of combined computing power, it seems the campaign was not very lucrative, with reports of profits totaling .
Speaking to news agency TT, Symantec security expert Ola Rehnberg commented on its growth:
“It has just gone through the roof. I’ve never seen such a big change in the short term,”
Cryptojacking is not the only concern, and Symantec also mentions an increase in bank trojans over the same period. The wave of cryptojacking incident leads some experts to believe that it will become more of a problem than ransomware, like the notorious WannaCry attack which demanded bitcoin as a ransom to Lotem Finkelstein, a threat intelligence analysis leader at Check Point:
“It may be becoming a more serious issue than ransomware. The problem is that [cryptojacking is] simply everywhere – on websites, servers, PCs, and mobile.”
Why Sweden?
might not be the first country to spring to mind when is mentioned, but the state has very low cash usage, and the Riksbank has recently suggested it will create a national cryptocurrency the ‘.’
The capital, Stockholm, is the in Europe and has attracted significant investment in the blockchain. Several have also setup in the north of the country.
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The Prime Minister of Malta, Joseph Muscat has always been a firm supporter of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. While a number of countries in Europe tend not to have a friendly disposition towards the crypto market, Malta is one of the countries with a history of creating an enabling environment for crypto market operations to flourish.
Part of Muscat’s blockchain agenda has been the implementation of blockchain technology in and . Estonia and are two European countries that have made giant strides in blockchain protocol implementations.
In an address delivered as part of a political rally in Mqabba on Sunday morning, March 25, 2018, Prime Minister Muscat that the government is in talks with a number of potential cryptocurrency investors who want to move their businesses to the country. The Prime Minister stated that the government has series of meeting with these investors over the coming weeks and months.
Binance is Just the Beginning
On Friday, March 23, that , the platform in terms of trading volume was looking to open an office in Malta. The Prime Minister even responded to a announcing the move as he welcomed Binance with open arms to the country. The founder of Binance, Zhao Changpeng even referred to Malta as being a progressive country, especially in the area of cryptocurrency and fintech.
Speaking on the Binance move at the rally in Mqabba, Prime Minister Muscat stated that Binance isn’t even the first crypto company to make the move to Malta. According to the Prime Minister, the popularity of the company is the reason why it made all the headlines. He declared many other companies have either already moved or are making plans to move to Malta.
Malta’s Plans to Regulate the Crypto Market
With the influx of crypto into the country, the Prime Minister reiterated the need for a robust regulatory framework for the country’s market. He declared that his government was prepared to take the first step in regulating the market. The Prime Minister noted that such a move would be akin to stepping into uncharted territory seeing as there isn’t exactly a tried, tested, and trusted playbook that could be consulted to provide information on how best to go about regulating the market. However, the Prime Minister declared that the government was determined to take the plunge and explore all possible angles to achieve a functioning regulatory environment for the country’s crypto market.
According to Prime Minister Muscat, the crypto businesses flocking into the country aren’t doing so primarily because of the tax benefits. They are doing so because of their confidence in the government to create a proper regulatory framework for the market. Muscat also expressed confidence that the country’s crypto market could become as robust as its financial and sectors though he admitted that such growth wouldn’t be linear.
The Prime Minister also touched on the potential economic benefits tied to the incoming crypto businesses especially in the area of job opportunities.
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