Researchers from US-based Internet security firm MalwareBytes have claimed that illegal crypto jacking activities primarily targeting consumers “is essentially extinct”.

As stated in the research, following the closure of the cryptocurrency mining service Coinhive in March 2019 – the time when its system ceased to be economically viable – consumer-targeted crypto mining has drastically plummeted, while at the same time the number of business-targeted attacks has inclined, compared to the figures of Q4 2018.

“Marked by the popular drive-by mining company CoinHive shutting down operations in early March, consumer crypto mining seems to have gone the way of the dodo. Detections of consumer-focused Bitcoin miners have dropped significantly over the last year and even from last quarter,” the research claimed.

Moreover, the MalwareBytes report also revealed that a digital coin equivalent of $2.3 million of Bitcoin traders, who use Macbooks to access their Electrum wallets, have been hijacked and transferred to a Trojanized Electrum wallet during early 2019.

Cryptojacking – the action of illicitly hijacking a random person’s computer equipment to mine cryptocurrency without their approval or knowledge. The usual effects of a hijacked computer system include slowdown, more heat generation, and shorter battery life. Furthermore, Monero – the privacy-centric digital currency which can be mined using standard computing equipment.

Earlier, one 31-year-old web designer had reportedly used Coinhive, a JavaScript miner for the Monero blockchain that can be embedded in a website. He has secretly operating software on his website that used his site visitors’ spare computing power to mine crypto without them knowing.