BURST Mining Chips

[ANN] jminer v0.4.6 - GPU assisted PoC-Miner for Burstcoin (BURST) Bitcoin Forum. Win7 has strange caching issues on BURST mining!). (bonaire chip) ATI 5850 1Gb.

More security news • • • • Not so with Loapi, a newly-discovered trojan with a cryptocurrency miner that worked a phone so hard its battery swelled up and burst open the device's back cover. Kaspersky Lab researchers found the malware lurking in about 20 bogus apps. The researchers decided to infect an Android phone with the malware, which wrecked the phone within 48 hours. Cryptocurrency miners are known to cause wear and tear on hardware by using a CPU to solve a cryptographic challenge. This generates a hash that earns the miner a cryptocurrency reward, which in this case goes to Loapi's makers, rather than the device's rightful owner. Loapi uses Android phones to mine the bitcoin-alternative Monero. It's not the first Android malware to attempt this, but it's unusual for a miner to cause this much damage in such a short time.

Besides mining, Loapi has several other capabilities that earn its makers money at the expense of a victim's phone and bandwidth. Kaspersky researchers they've never seen such a 'jack of all trades' piece of Android malware before. Loapi also bombards victims with endless ads, can use the device to launch a distributed denial-of-service attack, can send SMS messages to any number, and subscribe to paid-for services on behalf of the victim. 'Because of the constant load caused by the mining module and generated traffic, the battery bulged and deformed the phone cover,' Kaspersky said. The malware has a self-defense feature that enables it to reach a command-and-control server for a list of apps that that could detect it, such as legitimate antivirus apps.

If a targeted security app is launched, the malware displays a 'malware detected' alert and asks if the user wants to uninstall it. In fact, the victim has little choice but to agree to uninstall the app as the message is shown in a loop that won't disappear until give in.

Loapi has several modules that work together to earn its creators money. The web crawling module works with the advertising module to open URLs and display ads. Kaspersky's test found it opened a massive 28,000 URLs in 24 hours. This was the other major source of damage to the battery. The web crawling module also contains hidden JavaScript that can subscriber victims to paid services on sites with WAP billing.

If a site uses SMS to confirm a subscription, the SMS module can send a reply confirming it. Android apps with hidden coin miners have been showing up with greater frequency, Related coverage Expect to see more miners silently chewing up CPU resources through your browser.

Stealthy and persistent cryptocurrency-mining malware is hitting Windows machines. Closing your browser won't stop this JavaScript cryptocurrency miner.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Samsung aims to benefit from rising demand for the equipment needed to underpin crypto-currencies Samsung Electronics has revealed it is making chips designed specifically to harvest crypto-currency coins. The firm made the disclosure, where it said the activity should boost its profits. The report also confirmed that the South Korean company overtook Intel to become the biggest chipmaker last year. And it forecast strong demand for its forthcoming Galaxy S9 smartphone, which is due to be revealed on 25 February. Samsung Electronic’s fourth quarter net profit totalled 12. Hardware Required To Mine DigitalNote XDN. 3tn won ($11.5bn; £8.1bn), which was roughly in line with analysts’ expectations. But its shares jumped nearly 9% after the company revealed that it was splitting its stock 50-to-1, which should encourage trade in the asset.

Asic’s advantage For now, Samsung is providing little detail about its new crypto-currency business. “Samsung’s foundry business is currently engaged in the manufacturing of crypto-currency mining chips,” it said in a statement given to the BBC. “However we are unable to disclose further details regarding our customers.” Mining, in this context, refers to solving complex mathematical problems as a means to verify crypto-currency transactions – a task for which the owners of the computers involved are rewarded with new digital tokens or “coins”. The Bell, a Korean-language newspaper, are Asic (application-specific integrated circuit) chips. These are chips that are custom-designed to carry out a single task – in this case “mining” Bitcoin or another specific crypto-currency – but not general computing operations.

Until 2013, Asic chips were more commonly associated with the TV industry. But that year, a New York-based entrepreneur began for Bitcoin mining, which promised better performance and lower energy use than GPU (graphics processing unit) chips, which are still more commonly associated with the task. In recent months, a shortage of high-end GPU cards has pushed up their prices, making the rival Asic technology even more appealing.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Most mining rigs currently use GPUs rather than Asic chips According to The Bell, Samsung completed development of its own Bitcoin-related Asic chip last year and began mass production earlier this month. Until now, Taiwan’s TSMC was the only other major processor-manufacturer engaged in the activity.

One expert said Samsung’s move represented a bet that Bitcoin’s rise in value does not represent a bubble that is about to burst. “We don’t know how low Samsung can sell its chip for and still be profitable,” said Garrick Hileman, a crypto-currency researcher from the University of Cambridge. “But if Bitcoin’s price were to collapse and enter a bear market like in 2014 to 2015, one would wonder if Samsung would stay with this line of business through such a turn.” Taking top spot Samsung’s latest venture coincided with news that its semiconductors division logged 74.3tn won ($69.6bn; £49.1bn) of sales last year. That compares with a figure of $62.8bn.

It marks the first time the US firm has not occupied the top spot since 1992, according. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Samsung has benefited from demand for its chips in both its own and rivals’ mobile devices Much of Samsung’s success is down to the popularity of its memory chips – it highlighted demand from the computer server and mobile device storage markets in particular.

Intel is hoping to increase its own market share in the sector, which it began selling last year. However, it risks being distracted by the need to redesign its processor chips after a flaw with their current.