Top XMR pool HashVault.pro's HR spikes to ~1.8 GH/s

The top XMR mining pool, HashVault.pro1, experienced a sharp hashrate spike from ~650 MH/s to around 1.8 GH/s earlier today.
The ~1 GH/s pool miner2 that is apparently responsible for the surge could potentially suggest botnet activity.
Although HashVault’s HR has recently dropped back to ~1.2 GH/s, the pool still controls almost ~35% of the total Monero network hashrate of ~3.4 GH/s.
At least two other similar spikes were registered in October3 and December 20224.
It is interesting to note that P2Pool’s HR is down ~33.3% for the day.
This is an ongoing story and the report will be updated when new information is available.
Update 23/2/12: the pool miner’s account was spotted on nanopool.org today5’6.
Update 23/2/13: HR back to ‘normal’ levels ~650 MH/s.
Update 23/2/27: the same pool miner appears to be back on HV7.
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https://monero.hashvault.pro/en/dashboard/49ixgZU6cafjMkM6RjmR9UA3qhmRL5NrfQAyxR7BBcEjL2VQUSMbTs81scaTd6R7REaNFkbrebRruXQRP5sZHEjtRTKPyQC ↩
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https://xmr.nanopool.org/account/49ixgZU6cafjMkM6RjmR9UA3qhmRL5NrfQAyxR7BBcEjL2VQUSMbTs81scaTd6R7REaNFkbrebRruXQRP5sZHEjtRTKPyQC ↩
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https://libera.monerologs.net/monero-community/20230212#c204344 ↩