Hijacking Redirects 13 EH/s of Bitcoin Mining Power to OCEAN

A reported hijacking diverted about 13 exahashes per second (EH/s) of Bitcoin (BTC) mining power from roughly 64,000 machines to OCEAN, with reward payouts configured for an attacker-controlled Bitcoin address.

The activity began around 9 p.m. ET Nov. 14 (02:00 UTC Nov. 15), based on a reported start time of 8 p.m. U.S. Central Time. OCEAN’s hashrate briefly approached 50 EH/s before dropping to about 40 EH/s.

CoreX Hosting raised the first alarm, saying mining machines had been switched to another pool without authorization. One affected operator said its entire mining site had been taken over. CoreX later said the activity appeared to have ended, with the diverted computing power falling to about 100 petahashes per second (PH/s).

The attackers did not mine a Bitcoin block during the diversion, so they received no block reward. Miners lost the chance to earn BTC while their machines were pointed away from their intended pool, showing how unauthorized pool changes can disrupt mining revenue.