Following on from Earth Day 2023, Kaspersky has revealed new data on the environmental impact of blocking crypto miners, saying it prevented more than 200-million attempts at illegal crypto mining in 2022 – and in the process saved the possible energy equivalent of up to 3 000 tons of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.
Crypto mining is an energy-consuming business. For example, the electricity consumption for bitcoin production is equal to the annual energy consumption of Sweden. The growing energy costs of cryptocurrency production contributes to the growing popularity of malicious mining or cryptojacking – threats that infiltrate a user’s device to secretly mine cryptocurrency. The victim might not even be aware that someone is using their device’s processing resources for cryptocurrency mining as the malware runs in hidden mode.
High power consumed during cryptojacking can not only lead to a decrease in device performance, but also has negative consequences for the environment. In 2019, Kaspersky developed and introduced a special methodology that allows consumers and business to assess the impact of illegal mining on the environment. In the process, it discovered the amount of energy consumed in mining can reach1,67 GWh – enough comparable annual energy to power a city or charge 15 000 electric cars.
According to the new statistics, the trend of growing energy consumption by crypto mining remains.
In 2022, Kaspersky products prevented 202 540 954 attempts by hijackers to use another device for crypto mining.
The cost of this amount of energy varies country by country. For instance, if that amount of energy were consumed entirely in the US, American users will have to shell out $1 251 000 while residents of Denmark, where the price of electricity is currently the highest, would have to pay $4 017 100.
“While the danger of crypto mining to victims’ devices is well known, the negative impact of this threat on the environment is not so obvious,” says Maria Losyukova, head of sustainability at Kaspersky. “It is important to understand that the more energy mining consumes, the more carbon dioxide and other harmful substances are emitted into the atmosphere. Protecting customers from this cyberthreat not only leads to better digital life, but also serves as a preventive measure to increase environmental sustainability – especially where large populations reside.”