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Italian Man Reportedly Found Mining ETH Through Airport Computers

An Italian staff working at the airport apparently used its computer systems for the purpose of mining Ethereum (ETH). He has now been arrested since. It isn’t allowed to use other people’s systems without their approval for mining cryptocurrencies. 

A news summary from Rai News, an Italian media, reports that the staff was employed at the airport in the Italian city of Lamezia Terme and had downloaded ETH mining malware into the computer systems of the airport. The staff allegedly had established many mining rigs, benefiting from the backend systems of the airport in this exercise. Airport officials found out the offender through the camera footage.

Airport computers bugged For ETH Mining

In the Italian region of Calabria, technical assistance and supervision to airports’ digital infrastructure is provided by the firm Sacal Global Solutions. The staff, 41 years old, had apparently bugged Sacal’s systems to put the ETH mining malware in place. According to the news brief, the employee’s action had put the airport’s backend system in additional danger. 

“The investigators, with the collaboration of the airport authorities, analyzed the partitions of the IT network inside the hub, discovering the presence, in two different technical rooms, of a real ‘mining farm’ […] connected to the external Internet network through systems dedicated to the management of airport services and powered by the airport’s electricity supply,” 

Further Rai News stated, “The investigations, coordinated by the Lamezia Terme Public Prosecutor’s Office, were conducted with technical activities that made it possible to examine the IP addresses associated with the machines installed, to identify the site of the ‘Ethermine’ pool (used for mining of the Ethereum cryptocurrency) and monitor the site.”

Crypto mining malware has become a common menace in the industry, apparently impacting 55% of companies globally, at the peak of the previous crypto bull market in January 2018.

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