Despite the bleak outlook for the cryptocurrency market, bad actors are still interested in hoarding Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies illegally. In the latest development, Indonesian police have arrested a 22-year-old student for illegally running a virtual currency mining operation using college computers, The Jakarta Post reported on February 14, 2019.
Bitcoin Mining Behind the Blackboard
The 22-year-old Indonesian man was arrested by police for allegedly installing the HoneyMiner crypto mining software on 27 computers in the college’s shared computer room in an attempt to mine Bitcoin (BTC) and Monero (XMR). The HoneyMiner software itself makes it easy for users to mine Bitcoin and altcoins on their computers. New Jersey-based HoneyMiner launched a free beta in June 2018 to give crypto enthusiasts who can’t afford expensive Bitcoin mining hardware access to a huge amount of digital assets.
The culprit allegedly set up the illegal mining operation in January 2019, running it for several days, although it is still unclear whether he made money from the activity or not. Interestingly, the man reportedly enrolled in college in 2014 but was expelled by school officials after “failing to register.” However, even after his expulsion, the accused continued to use the college premises. Local police, who were arrested, eventually arrested the culprit. In the city center of Ulsan on February 10, 2019, after he was reportedly harassed for trespassing, according to reports. Police say the matter will be further investigated to determine whether the mining operation caused any damage to the school.
Bitcoin in the Lab: A Digital Heist
An illegal crypto mining operation on RiseDes. Despite the drop in the price of virtual currencies based on Bitcoin and other distributed ledger technologies (DLT), illegal crypto mining has been steadily increasing. In June 2018, BTCManager reported on a research report released by RiskIQ, a digital threat management firm, which revealed that thousands of frequently visited websites around the world were being used by attackers to illegally mine crypto without the consent of the site owners. On February 9, 2019, BTCManager reported that German authorities arrested six people for unauthorized crypto mining.
