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First Things First: Understanding Cryptocurrency Mining
IT support experts in San Antonio can help you keep from being undermined by pervasive opportunists using your bandwidth against you on the sly. Fully understanding how is going to require a quick crash-course in modern cryptocurrency, or decentralized money.
Basically, bitcoin–the most well-known of the cryptocurrencies currently–generates value by meting out statistical quotients of the currency in response to the completion of necessary digital tasks. Have you heard of cloud computing? Cloud computing networks multiple servers together for greater computing power and security, as well as data storage and processing. Since cloud computing is possible, the Internet of Things (IoT) began to arise. After IoT comes edge computing, which uses IoT devices (smartphones, tablets, WiFi-enabled fridges, etc.) to “float” a sort of “localized cloud.” Each individual IoT device acts like a server in a cloud array and processes some small amount of data.
Well, cryptocurrency mining kind of uses an amalgamation of these techniques to generate revenue. If you’ve got a computer, you can plug it in, sign up for a bitcoin account, then download an app that will process little things like video game ads or pictures before, let’s say, a YouTube video or facilitate advertisements on a website. Each transaction processed will pay you some small portion of bitcoin. You’re basically getting a percentage off the top for allowing your device to be used as a processing agent. In this way, you could make an extra $10 a day, or something of that ilk, over the course of a year. It’s a great PIG, or Passive Income Generator; and the more you outsource your devices, the more you can make. If one device brought you $10 a day, 100 would bring you $1,000, and the only cost would be electricity.
Where Cryptojacking Fits In
Electricity is a big cost. There are companies that run bitcoin mining operations that incorporate server arrays the size of small “cloud computing” arrays. Accordingly, offsetting that cost becomes desirable. What has happened is that “cryptojacking” has developed. If you’re not familiar, cryptojacking basically uses third-party apps, certain websites and other means to sneak into smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops, and servers and exploit them to process small cryptocurrency transactions. The end result is your network begins to lag. If you’re being exploited, energy use goes up, programs boot slower, web pages boot slower and your clients aren’t able to interface with you as swiftly as they should.
IT support experts in San Antonio can help you protect your operation against cryptocurrency through active monitoring and support that watches your network for anomalies. Wise cryptocurrency miners will try to hide on the fringes of your network and gradually increase their pull as your network expands with your operation’s success. Basically, cryptojackers are leeches. They’re barnacles, but you can’t bring the ship of your business into the harbor for a cleaning. Meanwhile, MSPs specialize in scrubbing your hull, even as your business ship travels the IT seas.
Safeguarding Your IT Network
IT support in San Antonio from ICS can help save you not only from cryptonjacking, also from malware, adware, spyware, ransomware and other pernicious threats. Contact us now for top-tier technology solutions that you can rely on.