Bitcoin mining
Contributed by: Email on 04/22/2013 02:25 PM
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Heard of Bitcoin? Well, it's still in the news, but not for any of the right reasons. Back on April 10th, Bitcoin was going for $263.79 but has since fallen to just over $100. Bitcoin is the new digital currency which is generated by software solving computationally difficult problems. Bitcoins are exchangeable for real-world currencies like the US dollar.
Since 2011, malware threats have been trying to steal bitcoin miners, one even trying to hide itself as a Trend Micro component. Bitcoin exchanges have been hit with Denial of service attacks. The criminals often try to use infected machines for bitcoin mining, costing the unaware user with increases in their electric bill as the mining often requires extreme computing. Graphics cards can be used for high-volume Bitcoin mining. The miners that are used by malware, however, currently take advantage only of an affected systems CPU, not its graphics. A computer with one of these GPU-capable miners would be equivalent to dozens of ordinary machines.
Since 2011, malware threats have been trying to steal bitcoin miners, one even trying to hide itself as a Trend Micro component. Bitcoin exchanges have been hit with Denial of service attacks. The criminals often try to use infected machines for bitcoin mining, costing the unaware user with increases in their electric bill as the mining often requires extreme computing. Graphics cards can be used for high-volume Bitcoin mining. The miners that are used by malware, however, currently take advantage only of an affected systems CPU, not its graphics. A computer with one of these GPU-capable miners would be equivalent to dozens of ordinary machines.
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