Miners of etereum may be exposed to a mass scanning campaign by hackers



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Do you think you are working hard to earn extra even while prices are low? If you do not pay attention and do not take into account the warnings on port 8545, it is possible that all your ETH will disappear during the night.


According to the Bad Packets cryptography and cybersecurity research firm, a mass-scanning campaign is currently running. Hackers are looking for equipment and ethereal mining portfolios on the internet.

Bad Packets co-founder Troy Mursch told ZDNet that this scan campaign has been active for over a week, starting December 3.

Scanning for exposed portfolios and mining equipment

Hackers search the Internet for any device with port 8545 exposed on the Internet. If you're not sure what it is, it's basically the standard port for the JSON-RPC interface of some types of mining equipment from Ethereum (specifically Geth) and Ethereum portfolios.

This JSON-RPC interface is an & # 39; API that allows locally installed services and apps to find relevant information related to mining and price.

Price analysis

For security reasons, the interface should, in theory, be exposed only at the local level. However, some mining equipment and wallet apps are available on all interfaces.

To add insult to injury, many of the JSON-RPC interfaces do not have a default password. This means that if the user has not been able to set one, the device is completely exposed.

It's easy money for hackers. All they have to do is locate the wallet or the mining equipment, send the right commands and remove all the ethereum 00 from the victim's address.

Port 8545 is not a new problem

Ethereum has long been aware of the problem of port 8545 and has sent a warning to all miners using Geth equipment in 2015. They warned of the danger of using the type of equipment and also to let Ethereum users know that this software exposes the API interface to the network.

They also recommended that users take additional precautions by adding a password or using a firewall to block unwanted inbound traffic for port 8545.

The warning has worked for some time, but the memories are brief in the crypto-sphere. While a lot of miners and wallet manufacturers took the appropriate precautions or completely removed the JSON-RPC interface, the effort was not at the industry level.

Furthermore, there is more than one way to fall victim to vulnerability in the Ethereum network. Just last month, researchers discovered another major flaw that allowed hackers to drain trades by burning their ETH at high transaction costs.

Do not let the price of Ethereum's Tee deceive you

In 2015, hackers who were sifting through ETH were not so widespread, but when Ethereum reached the staggering peaks of over $ 1,300 in January 2018, numerous high-profile hacking attacks began to emerge.

Among the worst of these occurred in June 2018 when a scanner was able to accumulate over 20 million dollars of Ethereum at the price of about 600 dollars then.

Since the price went blank with the altcoin as 90% lost its value, the problem of port 8545 was buried in the background.

But do not let the low price deceive you. Although the ETH is trading at under $ 100 these days, hackers are indiscriminate. They will still take a small amount from many people and make a great profit over time. Said Mursch:

Despite the price of cryptocurrency that crashes against the gutter, free money is still free, even if it is a few cents a day.

Second At their Twitter account, Bad Packets found that the scan activity had actually tripled compared to last month despite the minimum price.

It is thought that about 4,700 devices (most of which are the Parity wallets and the Geth mining equipment) are currently exposing their 8545 door. Even worse? Hackers can even find free tools to exploit this vulnerability and attack Ethereum users through the door.

So, if you have been negligent for your safety or have focused all your attention on the price, remember to never leave the back door (or your door 8545) completely wide open.

Will this vulnerability further damage the ETH price? Share your thoughts below!


Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Bad Packets LLC

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