5 South Korean citizens have been arrested for installing malware on over 6,000 computers

According to reports, five South Korean citizens have been arrested for allegedly installing cryptographic malware on more than 6,000 computers.

Local authorities and the Korean National Police Agency Cyber ​​Bureau issued an official statement in which they noted that the five men had sent 32,435 emails – which contained malware malware programs for desktop users.

The police investigation also revealed that the hackers were led by the 24-year-old South Korean citizen Kim Amu-gae. To install data mining malware, hackers have placed themselves as employers as they send thousands of emails to job applicants.

The victim's e-mail addresses were taken from the lists of candidates who had applied to the big tech companies in South Korea. Police officials said the hackers found the lists on various local recruitment sites and online job forums. .

Anti-virus programs Remove mining malware

The South Korean authorities suspect that the accused sent e-mails containing cryptographic malware, but was disguised as documents that job candidates were told to investigate. After users have downloaded attachments, malicious mining scripts have started running on their PCs.

Most target users had the latest anti-virus software installed on their computers, so mining malware was automatically deleted from their hard drives in a few days.

Commenting on the successful efforts of Internet security companies and anti-virus solution providers, local police said:

Because computer security companies and antivirus software operators quickly responded to the distribution of data mining malware, the hacker group was unable to generate significant revenue from its operations. In most cases, anti-virus software detected malware within three to seven days. If the malware was detected, the hackers sent new malware, but was again detected by the antivirus software.

Only able to generate $ 1,000 from large-scale malware attacks

In particular, cybercriminals only made about $ 1,000 from a large-scale malware attack that seemed to have been carefully planned. Although malicious mining scripts were downloaded by thousands of unsuspecting users, the malware was not able to cause any significant damage because most users protected their PCs with advanced antivirus software.

Officials investigating the incident have noted:

Crypto jacking significantly reduces computer performance and, if exposed to institutions, could have a serious impact on society. PC users must have secure antivirus software and frequently update browsers. In addition, if a computer's performance suddenly drops, users will have to suspect the presence of mining malware.

In most cases, malware containing mining scripts attempts to extract Monero (XMR) privacy-oriented. However, due to the increasing availability of high-end GPUs and more powerful mining hardware for PCs, it has now become more difficult for ordinary desktop computers to extract XMR.