Crypto Mining Malware grows by 86% in the second quarter, with over 2.5 million new coin samples

The number of crypto-mining malware attacks used by hackers continued to grow, with a total number of samples growing by 86% in the second quarter of 2018, according to the latest cyber security threat report McAfee Labs released September 25th.

In the report, IT security experts have declared more than 2.5 million new samples of malware miner coins found in the second quarter. In comparison, the number of crypto-malware attacks in the first quarter was about 2.9 million, a 629% increase compared to about 400,000 samples found in the fourth quarter of 2017.

The report concludes that the coin miners' malware remains "very active" as a result of the general increase in mine encryption malware with "new threats to coin miners" [that] they climbed massively in 2018. "

Statistics on threats of coin miners. Source: McAfee Labs, 2018

Specifically, the report highlights the fact that cybercriminals have discovered "new corners" of illegal coin mining to increase profits, which is leading to a surge in the popularity of cryptographic and blockchain technology. . McAfee Labs also cited the recent threat report titled "Do not adhere to the blockchain revolution without ensuring security" to alert users of emerging technologies on the associated risks.

Christiaan Beek, Lead Scientist and Senior Principal Engineer with McAfee Advanced Threat Research, told Business Wire that, apart from PCs, low-CPU devices have become a new source of "revenue flow" for cybercriminals.

Because of their "propensity for weak passwords", in addition to the ability to detect "a huge volume" of devices such as Wi-Fi routers, camcorders and other Internet of Things (IoT) devices, they represent a "very attractive platform" for of illegal encryption.

Last week, Cointelegraph reported that official government websites have become the main focus for cryptojacking in India, including municipal government websites.

At the end of August, Firefox announced that it will begin to block encryption malware in future versions of its Web browser, including cryptographic scripts that "silently extend cryptocurrencies" to users' devices.