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Computers are always on and suddenly they are slow for no reason. This happens to the victims of Russian malware.
This Russian malware is designed to steal the power of the computer exclusively. Calculation power is used to secretly extract cryptocurrency.
McAfee Labs has discovered this cryptographic malware. This Russian malware will be able to extract Monero and Zcash.
The malware is called WebCobra and will install a different miner depending on the configuration of the machine.
When the software was carefully analyzed, the researchers saw that hackers are installing the software through a Microsoft installation package. The packages installed Cryptonight miners on 86 systems and Claymore's Zcash miner on 64 systems.
To be noted, the Cryptonight miner is not limited to Monero alone. This miner works compatibly with any other coin that will use the Cryptonight algorithm. The malware is traced to have its origins in Russia. At the moment he has infected computers in South Africa, Brazil and the United States.
The vectors that attack the cryptocurrency become more complex every day. However, last week, researchers identified the new tactics used by scammers to deal with mining malware. They use this tactic to make it look legitimate by imitating the Windows installation files. Security experts have warned that cryptocurrency scammers are making use of new techniques such as Trojan attacks on their attack tools. This trend according to McAfee laboratories, is likely to continue at least until the near future.
The value of cryptocurrencies is increasing, which has in turn motivated cybercriminals to use malware that will steal the resources of the machine to extract cryptographic coins without the victim's consent.
CoinHive is another miner of Monero that is often used by hackers. This generates $ 250,000 profits every month.
The Coin mining malware will evolve only as cyber criminals will continue to exploit this easy path to steal the value of investors. This is also a less expensive method for extracting cryptocurrency. The investment risk is lower than the ransomware. Returns do not depend on the percentage of victims who will accept to send money. This malware accesses any vulnerable computer and initiates the cryptocurrency extraction.
The key element of the whole process is that hackers receive electricity and hardware for free. They can hack computers from anywhere in the world. Therefore, they extend internationally without too much spending on the network.
