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Monero (XMR) is by far the most popular cryptocurrency among criminals who implement mining malware, according to a new study.
Two researchers, Sergio Pastrana and Guillermo Suarez-Tangil, respectively of the Carlos III University of Madrid and of the King & # 39; s College of London, published their report last week, estimating that the hackers have extracted at least 4 , 32 percent of the total total circulation in circulation.
Pastrana and Suarez-Tangil write:
"Overall, we estimate that there are at least 2,218 active campaigns that have accumulated about 720,000 XMR ($ 57 million). It is interesting to note that only a single campaign (C # 623) has extracted more than 163,000 XMRs ($ 18 million), which represent about 23% of the total estimated.This campaign is still active at the time of writing. "
Researchers, however, are not sure if, or which part, the malware owners have cashed their cryptography, due to the lack of information and the fluctuating prices of the cryptosides. At the time of printing, the value of the quoted XMR total is almost $ 40 million.
Approximately 4.4 million malware samples were analyzed for a period of 12 years, from 2007 to 2018, and 1 million malicious miners were identified, the document states.
The tactics adopted to distribute the malware vary, but the couple says that a "common but effective approach is to use legitimate infrastructures like Dropbox or GitHub to host dropper and mining tools like Claymore and xmrig for real mining" .
After monero, which the couple said "more prevalent", the bitcoins arrived at the second preferred encryption for illicit extraction, although its popularity has decreased over the years. Bad actors have also experienced other altcoins like dogecoin or litecoin in 2013 and 2014 and then switched to bitcoin and monero, probably because they are more profitable, the researchers suggest.
Among the portfolios associated with malware identified by the team, the monero accounted for 56% more than the bitcoin, while Zcash ranked third.
More generally, cryptographic malware applications have increased by more than 4,000% last year, according to a McAfee research published in December – growth that saw the rapid overrun of the previous favorite, ransomware, over the period.
In November, research conducted by the Israeli cybersecurity company Check Point Software Technologies showed that monogenic malware, dubbed KingMiner, is evolving over time to avoid detection.
Monero image via Shutterstock; tables through the report
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