Number of routers affected by the Crypto malware doubled since August, reaching 415K

The number of MikroTik routers affected by cryptojacking malware has been doubled republican by summer 2018, reaching 415,000, security researcher VriesHd tweeted Sunday 2nd December.

Since August, VriesHd has reported cryptographic malware that routes routers and forces them to extract cryptocurrencies together with Bad Packets report.

They revealed that the Mikrotik routers, a Latvian manufacturer of network equipment, they have been compromised at least 16 different types of malware, including Coinhive, a cryptographic software that extracts Monero's privacy-oriented cryptocurrency (XMR).

In September, the estimated number of compromised routers exceeded 280,000, according to Bad Packets. In the recent tweet VriesHd explains that he only checked three possible ways to abuse MikroTik, although there may be many others. The review by VriesHd, which is based only on preliminary projections, shows 415,000 interested routers.

As VriesHd told The Next Web, the hackers have recently moved from Coinhive to other mining software, such as Omine and CoinImp. He also noted that the exact number might be slightly off, as the data reflects only the infected IP addresses. However, he believes that the number is still high. "It would not surprise me if the actual number […] It would be somewhere between 350,000 and 400,000, "said VriesHd.

As reported previously by Cointelegraph, Brazil is the most affected by cryptojacking. According to a research by the Iranian cybersecurity authority, the month of October was hit by Coinhive in over 81,000 victims. India came second with about 29,000 incidents, followed by Indonesia with over 23,000. Iran itself has lived about 11,000.

According to a Bloomberg report, the total number of crypto-mining malware infections increased by 500% this year after hackers allegedly stole a code for Microsoft Systems from the US National Security Agency (NSA).

Another report from the corporate security and network company Palo Alto Networks found that around 5 percent of all outstanding Monero was mined through cryptojacking.