Re: Cryptocurrency mining in Higher Ed

[Rich Graves <rcgraves () GMAIL COM>]

Detection and interdiction of major mining hubs is still fairly easy. There exist open source emerging threats rules. 
Or you could simply troll your DNS or proxy or “next gen” firewall logs.

Anyone who has ever run a broadly available compute cluster has seen students and staff mining bitcoin “just as a 
test.” Sometimes, full-time IT personnel play that game. IMO it’s clear waste and abuse. There is no further need for 
theoretical testing. Cryptoeonomics are such that there is no rational argument for carbon neutrality. Unless heat 
output is exceptionally well-managed it will reduce the life of your equipment.

The difficulty is political, in that some of the people abusing resources may have power, and there are risks of 
collateral harm to innocents, Because although most bitcoin mining is authorized, it also happens due to intrusion 
“and,” although I would also call these too intrusions, through JavaScript Malvertising and downloaded adware/spyware 
wrappers.

So, good luck! People are jerks, especially many of the people pushing the cryptocurrency bubble. This is a layer eight 
or layer nine problem. Have patience explaining it to your management, some of whom might be investing in 
cryptocurrency.

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