It is said that hacking is an art. Sometimes a hacker does something so brilliant that we can’t help but marvel at it. However, lately we’ve come to know that a hacker has nabbed $600,000+ in two months just by Googling people’s home networks!
The hacker’s exploits were documented by Dell’s security team. According to the Dell team, the unnamed hacker using a code-name “Folio” on GitHub (GitHub is a cloud service where developers post and share their software projects) used a security flaw in a computer storage product called Synology. Note that Synology’s computer storage product is easy to set up, so it has become popular with people who store a lot of songs, movies, and other multimedia files on their home networks.
On the other hand, in 2013, a security researcher discovered a flaw with the Synology product that let a hacker find, and ultimately control, these computer storage devices by searching for them on Google. At then, the company fixed the vulnerably and released a patch. But before telling the world about the flaw and the patch, Folio became an intruder and he discovered vulnerable computer storage boxes and put them to work to “mine” for Dogecoin.
Dogecoin is a computer currency like Bitcoin and is created by “mining,” which involves getting computers to answer a series of cryptographic questions to unlocks new coins. It takes a lot of computing power to answer these questions. People actually buy specially made computers to do it.
However, before the patch was released, the Dell researchers had discovered that Folio was able to nab 500 million Dogecoin which is equivalent to $620,496. The Dell team thinks this could be the most profitable illegal hacker mining operation of Dogecoin ever discovered.
Source: Business Insider
[ttjad keyword=”security”]
