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A group specializing in hijacking the power of victims’ computers to mine monero is back with new tools to attack companies based in the United States and Europe.
Japanese cybersecurity firm Trend Micro reported Monday that the group, known as Outlaw, has begun infiltrating Linux-based enterprise systems to hijack computer power and mine privacy coin monero (XMR), a process known as cryptojacking. .
Trend Micro’s report states that Outlaw used a combination of pre-existing tools and new techniques to monitor programs that can detect malware.
The newly improved malware can also hunt down and kill existing mining bots, even previous group miners, found in infected systems, eliminating competition and improving mining profits. Past iterations had been able to only partially reduce the activity of rival mining robots.
Trend Micro said Outlaw’s business began to increase in December after several months of inactivity. “[W]We expect the group to be more active in the coming months as we have observed changes in the versions we have acquired, “the report reads.
Although Outlaw had previously limited itself to computer systems in China, Trend Micro’s report found that it was now targeting companies in Europe and the U.S. The cybersecurity firm found that the group targeted several of the its honeypots – mechanisms designed to lure hackers into attacking it – located around the world. Eastern European region.
The report did not disclose the names of companies, in the United States or elsewhere, that had been affected by the Outlaw malware.
The group could also try to steal information and sell it to the highest bidder, Trend Micro said. Companies in the financial and automotive sectors that haven’t recently updated their internet security systems are at high risk, the cybersecurity firm has warned.
Outlaw first rose to fame in 2018 after installing crypto-mining bots in Internet of Things (IoT) device software. In 2019, Trend Micro took over the group attacking computer systems in China with a similar design of malware that allegedly hijacked the computer’s power to extract monero.
Malware that hijacks your computer’s power to mine Monero is not uncommon. In February 2018, more than half a million computers were infected with a botnet that mined nearly 9,000 XMR tokens (worth approximately $ 3.6 million) over a nine-month period. Being a privacy coin, hackers can sell monero without the risk of being caught by the authorities.
Very little is known about the Outlaw hacker group, not even how they define themselves. Trend Micro coined the name “Outlaw” as a translation of the Romanian word outlaw, which is the name of one of the group’s favorite hacking tools.
