Under the Dark: A Systematical Study of Stealthy Mining Pools (Ab)use in the Wild
Zhenrui Zhang, Geng Hong, Xiang Li, Zhuoqun Fu, Jia Zhang, Mingxuan Liu, Chuhan Wang, Jianjun Chen, Baojun Liu, Haixin Duan, Chao Zhang, Min Jian Yang · 2023
Cryptocurrency mining is a crucial operation in blockchains, and miners often join mining pools to increase their chances of earning rewards. However, the energy-intensive nature of PoW cryptocurrency mining has led to its ban in New York State of the United States, China, and India. As a result, mining pools, serving as a central hub for mining activities, have become prime targets for regulatory enforcement. Furthermore, cryptojacking malware refers to self-owned stealthy mining pools to evade detection techniques and conceal profit wallet addresses. However, no systematic research has been conducted to analyze it, largely due to a lack of full understanding of the protocol implementation, usage, and port distribution of the stealth mining pool.