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Cybercriminals are looking for prey and are following the money. The only difference now is that they graduated from old methods to new vectors of threats that seem to be more profitable initiatives for these evil actors. There was a considerable increase in the number of crypto mining malware attacks, with total samples growing by 86 percent in the second quarter of 2018, according to the new threat report released Wednesday by security company McAfee Labs.
According to relationship, coin miners' malware remains very active today and the total of samples grew by 86% in the second quarter, with over 2.5 million new files added to the the malware Database. The report also focuses on adapting the type of malware vulnerability exploits used in the 2017 WannaCry and NotPetya attacks.
The report concludes that the coin miners' malware remains "very active," following the general wave of mine-encryption malware with "new threats to coin miners who jumped high in 2018".
"A few years ago, we did not think of Internet routers, video recording devices and other Internet of Things devices as encrypted extraction platforms because their CPU speeds were too low to support such productivity" said Christiaan Beek, Lead Scientist and Senior Principal Engineer with McAfee Advanced Threat Research at Business Wire.
"Today, the huge volume of such online devices and their propensity for weak passwords are a very interesting platform for this business.If I was a cybercriminal with a botnet of 100,000 IoT devices, it would cost me almost nothing from the point financial perspective to produce enough cryptocurrency to create a new and profitable revenue stream " He added.
The report also adds that in some cases, encryption is aimed at specific groups rather than a large field of potential victims. A mine of malware encryption had targeted the players in a Russian forum presenting itself as a "mod" that claimed to improve popular games. It has led players to download malicious software, which has continued to use computer resources to profit from it.
According to another report published by the Cyber Threat Alliance (CTA) at the beginning of this month, the clear majority of illegal cryptocurrency malware extracts Monero (85%), followed by Bitcoin at 8%. All other cryptocurrencies make up the remaining 7 percent. Although Monero has a significantly lower value than Bitcoin, it remains the preferred choice for malicious actors. Monero offers these actors privacy and anonymity that make it difficult to track investigators.
See also: The study suggests that attempts to encrypt are increasing in 2018
Monero [XMR] the case of cryptojacking involves 16 convicted: Japanese media
Image via Shutterstock
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