Proxyjacking and cryptojacking both secretly turn someone else’s device into criminal income, but they abuse different resources. Proxyjacking routes other people’s traffic through your internet connection and IP address. Cryptojacking uses your processor, electricity and cooling capacity to mine cryptocurrency. Proxyjacking is generally the greater attribution and third-party-crime risk; cryptojacking is generally the greater performance, heat, energy and availability risk. The more dangerous technique depends on whether your priority is avoiding criminal traffic tied to your IP, protecting network quality, preventing device damage or limiting operating costs.
What proxyjacking is
Proxyjacking is the unauthorized use of a victim’s unused internet bandwidth and residential IP address as a proxy service. A proxy is an intermediary: a remote customer sends a request to the proxy, and the destination website sees the proxy’s IP rather than the customer’s original address. When a criminal enrolls your device without clear, informed consent, your connection becomes part of that network.
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The FBI describes residential proxies as intermediaries that make traffic appear to originate from another person’s legitimate residential IP. A compromised smart television, streaming device, digital picture frame, smartphone, tablet, router, camera, NAS or other internet-connected device can be enrolled. Malware is one route. Hidden or misleading VPN terms, dubious “passive-income” applications and poorly secured devices are other routes. Some services present bandwidth sharing as a voluntary program, but consent is not meaningful if the software hides the arrangement, obscures the risks or is installed by someone else.
How proxyjacking generates money
The operator sells access to a pool of residential IPs or uses the pool to conduct its own activity. The victim supplies the connection and the reputation attached to the address; the operator receives the revenue. A single device may contribute only a small amount of bandwidth, while a large network of compromised devices provides geographic diversity and a steady supply of apparently legitimate addresses.
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What criminals do through a proxied IP
The Netherlands’ National Cyber Security Centre warns that proxyjacking can make a victim an intermediary for criminal activity. The FBI lists uses including phishing, identity theft, fake-account creation, data exfiltration, brute-force attacks, bypassing regional restrictions, illicit-market activity and account takeovers. These actions may be performed by the proxy operator or by customers who buy access to the pool.
What cryptojacking is
Cryptojacking is covert, unauthorized cryptocurrency mining on a computer, mobile device, router, camera, smart television, NAS or other connected system. Mining software performs repeated calculations for a cryptocurrency network. The criminal receives the potential mining reward, while the victim pays for the processor time, electricity, heat and reduced device capacity.
The Australian Cyber Security Centre describes the technique this way: "Cybercriminals can install cryptomining malware on a device or network without the owner knowing. This is called cryptojacking, and secretly uses your device or network’s processing power to illegally earn cryptocurrency for the cybercriminal." The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security similarly describes covert mining on computers, mobile devices and IoT devices, commonly delivered through compromised websites, applications or phishing.
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Malware or a malicious script starts a mining process and connects it to infrastructure controlled by the criminal. The process may throttle itself to avoid obvious crashes, activate only when the device is idle, or run continuously. Browser-based mining can stop when a tab closes; an installed miner can persist through reboots until it is removed. The exact cryptocurrency and mining method vary, but the business model is consistent: shift computing cost to the victim.
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How the two attacks work
| Stage | Proxyjacking | Cryptojacking |
|---|---|---|
| Initial access | A vulnerable device, malicious application, hidden VPN or bandwidth-sharing term, stolen credentials, or compromised router or IoT firmware. | A compromised website, malicious application, phishing attachment or link, vulnerable service, or infected computer, phone or IoT device. |
| Resource taken | Upload and download bandwidth, the public IP address and sometimes connection time or device availability. | CPU or GPU cycles, memory, electricity, battery capacity and cooling headroom. |
| Criminal output | Residential proxy access that can be resold or used to disguise origin. | Cryptocurrency-mining work credited to the criminal’s wallet or pool account. |
| Victim’s most distinctive exposure | Third parties may associate the victim’s IP with abusive requests. | The device may become slow, hot, unstable and more expensive to run. |
| Typical visibility | Often quiet unless bandwidth, installed software, DNS, VPN components or abuse reports are monitored. | Often produces performance, thermal, battery or electricity clues, although careful throttling can reduce them. |
Which is more dangerous?
There is no authoritative like-for-like statistic that ranks proxyjacking and cryptojacking by prevalence, victim count or total financial loss. Europol’s IOCTA 2026 identifies proxies as an expanding cybercrime enabler, but it does not provide a directly comparable loss figure for these two techniques. A useful comparison therefore has to follow the harm you need to prevent.
| Risk axis | Proxyjacking | Cryptojacking | Higher concern |
|---|---|---|---|
| IP attribution and reputation | Your household or business address can appear to originate phishing, brute-force, fraud, scraping or other abusive traffic. | The miner normally does not make your IP appear to be the source of a separate customer’s crime, although its command-and-control traffic can still attract attention. | Proxyjacking |
| Follow-on criminal activity | Proxy access can enable credential attacks, fake accounts, exfiltration, account takeover and attempts to evade geographic controls. | Mining is primarily a monetization activity; the infection can still coexist with other malware. | Proxyjacking |
| Processing, heat and energy | Bandwidth use may affect the connection, but it does not normally monopolize the processor. | Mining can consume sustained CPU or GPU capacity, increase heat and fan noise, drain batteries and raise electricity use. | Cryptojacking |
| Network quality | High-volume proxy use can consume upload or download capacity, increase latency and make a connection unreliable. | Mining uses network traffic to reach mining infrastructure, but the dominant cost is computation rather than throughput. | Proxyjacking for bandwidth; cryptojacking for device capacity |
| Availability and productivity | Slow or congested internet can disrupt cloud applications, voice calls, video meetings and connected-home devices. | Slow applications, crashes, thermal throttling and battery drain can disrupt work and shorten usable device time. | Depends on the affected resource |
| Detection | May remain invisible until an abuse complaint, an unfamiliar proxy component or unusual outbound traffic is noticed. | Performance and thermal symptoms often provide a visible clue, though a throttled miner can be subtle. | Cryptojacking is usually easier to notice; proxyjacking can be harder to attribute |
Overall judgment: proxyjacking is more dangerous when legal, reputational and third-party-abuse exposure matters most. A victim can face questions from a service provider or investigator about traffic that the victim did not initiate, and the IP may be blocked by websites. Cryptojacking is more dangerous when device health, electricity consumption, battery life, production capacity or service availability matters most. On a fleet of servers, workstations or IoT devices, sustained mining can become an operational-cost and reliability problem.
Can someone use your IP address for crimes?
Yes. In a proxyjacking scenario, the criminal’s request is relayed through your connection, so the destination may record your public IP. That does not prove you committed the act, but it can make your address the first visible lead. You might see an abuse notice, a temporary account block, a web-service challenge or a provider asking about suspicious traffic. A residential IP can also be added to a blocklist, affecting normal browsing.
IP attribution is not the same as legal responsibility. Logs, device images, authentication records, timestamps and provider records are needed to determine who controlled the activity. If you receive a credible abuse complaint, preserve it and investigate rather than deleting logs or repeatedly rebooting every device. Contact your internet provider’s abuse or security channel when the complaint identifies your address and time period.
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Signs of cryptojacking
Cryptojacking indicators are usually related to sustained resource use. One symptom alone is not proof; operating-system updates, failing hardware, dust, a bad battery or a demanding application can look similar.
- Performance becomes slow even when no demanding application is open.
- Fans run loudly or continuously, the chassis becomes unusually hot, or thermal throttling appears.
- Applications crash, freeze or take much longer to launch.
- A laptop or phone battery drains unusually quickly.
- Electricity use rises without a corresponding change in occupancy or workloads.
- CPU or GPU utilization remains high in Task Manager, Activity Monitor, a mobile battery view or a device-management console.
- Unknown mining, proxy, script or persistence processes reappear after a reboot.
Check before assuming malware
Record the symptom, time and affected device. Close legitimate high-load applications, install pending updates, and compare utilization at idle and during normal work. Check whether a browser tab, video call, game, backup or software build explains the load. If high use persists at idle, treat it as a security investigation rather than merely a performance complaint.
Signs of proxyjacking
Proxyjacking can be quieter because the device may not perform heavy computation. Look for a combination of network, software and account clues:
- Unexplained upload traffic, especially when the device is idle or outside normal use hours.
- Latency, packet loss or bandwidth saturation that affects every device on the connection.
- Unknown VPN, proxy, tunneling or bandwidth-sharing applications, browser extensions or services.
- Router settings, DNS servers, certificates or administrator accounts that you did not create.
- An internet-provider abuse notice, a website block or reports that your address generated suspicious requests.
- A smart device or IoT product appearing in a residential-proxy inventory or traffic report.
- Terms in an application that authorize “sharing,” “residential access,” “bandwidth monetization” or similar activity without a clear explanation.
How to investigate a suspected infection
For a home network
- Identify the scope. List computers, phones, routers, cameras, televisions, streaming boxes, printers, NAS units and other connected devices. Note which ones show the symptom and when it occurs.
- Check the router first. Review connected-device lists, administrator accounts, firmware version, DNS settings, port-forwarding rules, VPN or proxy settings and remote-management exposure. Export logs if the router supports it.
- Review endpoints. Inspect installed applications, browser extensions, startup items, scheduled tasks, services and security alerts. Remove software you cannot identify only after recording its name and location.
- Measure traffic and resource use. Compare idle CPU or GPU load with outbound bandwidth. A high processor load points toward cryptojacking; unexplained outbound traffic with normal processor use points toward proxy abuse, although both can coexist.
- Scan with reputable security software. Update its signatures and run a full scan. For a managed household or small business, use endpoint telemetry that records process names, connections and persistence events.
- Contain confirmed devices. Disconnect the affected device from the network or place it in a quarantine segment. Do not reconnect it merely to test whether the symptoms return.
- Reset trust. From a known-clean device, change router, administrator, email and other important passwords, enable multifactor authentication, and revoke unknown sessions or tokens.
- Patch and rebuild when necessary. Update operating systems, browsers, firmware and applications. If a router or IoT device cannot be trusted after compromise, factory-reset it or replace it, then restore only verified settings.
For a business or managed environment
- Preserve endpoint, firewall, DNS, proxy and identity logs before remediation changes overwrite them.
- Search for the same process, domain, certificate, scheduled task, application or outbound destination across the fleet.
- Compare bandwidth and CPU/GPU baselines by device, user, site and time of day.
- Quarantine affected hosts with endpoint-management controls while maintaining forensic access.
- Check whether an abuse report names a public IP, timestamp or destination; correlate that information with DHCP, VPN and authentication logs.
- Escalate to your incident-response team, provider and legal or privacy contacts when customer data, regulated systems or criminal traffic may be involved.
How to prevent both attacks
Patch every layer
Keep operating systems, browsers, routers, applications and IoT firmware current. The FBI calls timely patching "one of the most efficient and cost-effective steps to minimize exposure to cybersecurity threats." Replace devices that no longer receive security updates, especially routers and internet-facing cameras.
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Remove easy account paths
- Use long, unique passwords for every account and store them in a reputable password manager.
- Replace default administrator credentials on routers, cameras, NAS devices and smart-home products.
- Enable multifactor authentication wherever it is offered.
- Disable remote administration, Universal Plug and Play and unused port forwards unless you have a documented need.
- Separate IoT devices from computers and work systems with guest Wi-Fi or VLANs.
Control software and browser risk
Install applications and browser extensions only from trusted sources. Avoid pirated software, suspicious links and attachments, and “free” VPNs whose terms do not clearly explain how they use your connection. Review permissions before installation and remove extensions you no longer need. A VPN or bandwidth-sharing feature is not automatically malicious, but its operator, business model and consent terms should be clear.
Monitor for the right signals
At home, enable router notifications for new devices and unusual traffic if available. In a business, alert on sustained idle CPU or GPU use, unexplained outbound bandwidth, new proxy or VPN components, repeated connections to unknown infrastructure and abuse reports tied to your address space. Review connected IoT inventory regularly; an overlooked camera or streaming device can remain compromised after computers are cleaned.
Use layered endpoint protection
Reputable antivirus or endpoint detection can identify known miners, malicious scripts, persistence mechanisms and suspicious network behavior. It cannot compensate for unsupported firmware, reused passwords or unrestricted software installation, so combine it with patching, least privilege, network segmentation and backups.
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Do not assume that stopping a mining process or uninstalling a proxy application ends the incident. Check startup entries, scheduled tasks, services, browser extensions, router settings, firmware and other devices that share the same credentials. Re-scan after rebooting and monitor CPU, GPU and outbound bandwidth for several days under normal workloads.
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If an abuse complaint was involved, keep the original notice, relevant logs, device list, remediation dates and provider correspondence. Explain that the address may have been used as an unauthorized intermediary, without claiming certainty you cannot prove. Ask the provider or affected service what evidence they need to remove a block or close the report.
Practical decision guide
| Your main symptom or concern | Most likely priority | First checks |
|---|---|---|
| Computer is hot, fans are loud and CPU or GPU use stays high at idle | Cryptojacking investigation | Task manager or endpoint telemetry, startup items, browser extensions, full malware scan and pending patches. |
| Internet is congested, especially upload, while devices show normal processor use | Proxyjacking or another unauthorized network service | Router clients, DNS, VPN/proxy software, outbound connections and unknown IoT devices. |
| Your public IP received an abuse complaint | Proxyjacking or another compromised host | Preserve the notice, correlate timestamps with DHCP and firewall logs, identify every device and contact the provider. |
| Several devices are slow and electricity use increased | Cryptojacking across a network, although other causes remain possible | Compare CPU/GPU and temperature by device, isolate the highest users and search for a common application or vulnerability. |
| A new “passive income” or VPN application appeared | Potential proxy enrollment | Read its permissions and terms, record its files and connections, uninstall or quarantine it, then reset credentials. |
Bottom line: choose the risk that matters most
Proxyjacking and cryptojacking are not interchangeable names for the same attack. Proxyjacking monetizes your connection and identity on the internet, creating a distinctive chance that strangers’ phishing, fraud or account attacks will be attributed first to your IP. Cryptojacking monetizes your hardware, creating sustained processor load, heat, battery drain, electricity cost and possible downtime.
For most households, investigate sudden heat and slow performance as possible cryptojacking, and investigate unexplained outbound traffic or an abuse notice as possible proxyjacking. For organizations, monitor both resource and network telemetry because either technique can spread across overlooked endpoints and IoT devices. Patching, unique credentials, trusted software, segmented networks and reputable endpoint monitoring reduce exposure to both.
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