Is there a Bitcoin Miner running on your network?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 23 June 2011 21:12

Opinion and Analysis

With the ABC having reportedly played host to Bitcoin currency creation software put in place by an ABC Innovation IT worker, who knows what evil malware lurks in the heart of some IT admins' networks?

The security lulz aren't just coming from anonymous hacker collectives, but potentially from internal IT workers who've decided not to follow crime-fighting example set by The Shadow, but instead to pursue the dark side of the force.

That dark side was reportedly in choosing to abuse a vast amount of peer-to-peer computing capacity to create a virtual currency called Bitcoin.

Wikipedia's explanation of the way Bitcoin works and how they can be generated is worth reading, especially in light of the value of Bitcoin currency suffering its first crash.

A very detailed article in the Sydney Morning Herald refers to a tip sent by a so-called 'ABC Insider' to Crikey that a misconduct case was underway, stating that 'the IT worker for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation sought to use the ABC's computing capacity and that of its viewers to create virtual currency that had real world value.'

The ABC has refused to comment beyond stating to the media that it was an 'IT security issue' and that a 'misconduct case was underway'.

Bitcoins arrived in 2009 to a controversial birth and initial allocation, and in the month of May dramatically increased in value, reaching US $17.50 on Mt Gox, the leading Bitcoin exchange, before June 19th's hack attack on the Mt Gox exchange and the release of all user names and passwords, sending the value of Bitcoins to US $0.01 each.

Bitcoins enjoy 'pseudonymous' nature that effectively anonymises transactions despite the actual value of each transaction necessarily being public due to the way the Bitcoin network works, leading to not only normal payment of money, but also seeing Bitcoins being used to launder money, act as payment for illegal drugs and as Lulzsec have demonstrated, a way to solicit donations.

What about the security of other networks - are Bitcoins being mined on other corporate networks, too?

Please read on to page two!