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eSentire Threat Intelligence, a company that monitors and responds to cyber attacks, published its Annual Report on Threats 2018. In the report, the company documents a 1.500% increase in crypt malware attacks in the last year.
The report finds that the attacks come in two forms: "malware on compromised assets and mining in the browser that only persists through the browsing session". Although a device can be infected without the user noticing, the typical symptoms include "slow performance and low battery life."
Prior to 2018, a very popular computer attack was ransomware, in which an infected device or file was blocked by the attacker and asked the user to pay with a cryptocurrency, otherwise the file would be been blocked or lost forever. However, as noted in the eSentire report, this was a very unreliable method of earning money for hackers, since it depended on end users who wanted the file to cooperate and pay the ransom. In 2018, they realized that if they can already compromise a device, why not install a coin acceptor and get a stable source of income.
In any case, the actors of the threats who were trying to get rich quickly had options. More powerful servers could be shot on the black market for immediate profit.
The popular altcoin of choice for these attacks seems to have been the Monero focused on privacy. The report finds that it was popular "for illegal activities due to its greater privacy and distributed mining capabilities." Monero has not gone under the radar for these features, as it has already been on the radar of US intelligence to be a tool in illicit activity.
As Dr. Craig Wright noted, the cryptocurrency space must distance itself from the wild west of its past. Anarchists and thieves who support Monero, in particular because of the anonymity he offers, are also holding back the digital currency as a whole, as it scares the public from adoption and encourages governments to criminalize the use of criptovalute.
The main goal of cyberattacks in 2018 were educators, the report noted. It is unlikely that the education sector is more targeted than others, but simply lacking cyber security and employee awareness needed to protect itself.
