Russians Charged For Using Government-Owned Computers To Mine Crypto

Crypto miners usually invest heavily in high-powered computers to jump in on the lucrative crypto mining business. But in Russia, criminals have found a more cost-effective -- and yet, illicit -- solution in jacking government-owned properties.

TASS reported on Monday that two Russian nationals had been prosecuted for using computers that belonged to the government to supply one purpose: mine crypto assets. Both suspects were unidentified, but one is a resident of Kurgan and was reported to have almost created a whole botnet that targets various regions across Russia. The other unidentified suspect's unauthorized mining activity was focused on the website of state water utility JSC Rostovvodokanal.

"In Russia, there have been two cases recently when people were brought to criminal responsibility for getting access to computers [of state organizations] and using them to mine cryptocurrencies," said Deputy Director of the National Coordination Center for Computer Incidents Nikolay Murashov during a press conference.

Crypto mining can be a profitable venture, especially with crypto assets like Bitcoin (BTC), that has a price tag tradable to fiat for several thousand dollars. And that's why, according to one official, everybody wants to be in the game, but not everyone can participate legally since the barriers to entry are very high.

Stealing cryptos would make more sense financially to those who can't afford the expensive mining hardware. Mix that with hacking skills for hijacking computers of state organizations, and that's a whole money-making operation with zero operational costs.

"Up to 80 percent of the computer's free power can be used to generate virtual coins, and a legitimate user may not even know about it," Murashov said.

He also added that the infection happens instantaneously when pages are opened.

Crypto theft has been a trend lately for Russia. Stantinko is a malware that internet security company Eset has been keeping an eye on since 2017. The botnet has been using YouTube channels to plant the module that infects computers and steals any Monero (XMR) coin. The video-sharing platform wasn't able to detect it until Eset informed them of the illicit activity. Stantinko's victims are mostly from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.