Cryptocurrency Mining Malware is the Latest Security Threat

Hijackers around the world are making millions of dollars, thanks to a newly uncovered cybercriminal cryptocurrency mining malware operation which borrows infection techniques from advanced hacking campaigns.

Cryptocurrency mining is fast becoming notoriously famous amongst the cyber crooks to earn money. While it uses the infected PC’s processor to carry out its task, the mining malware remains hidden leading to a successful attack. The increased cooling fan activity will be seldom noticed by people, and the average user isn’t going to think about it as much as a concern, let alone make the link to being infected with malware.

One of the most lucrative cryptocurrency mining operations discovered to date is a campaign by a group of unnamed ‘sophisticated’ threat actors. Analysis by security company Kaspersky Lab suggests this campaign made the cybercriminals behind it millions of dollars in the second half of 2017 through six months of mining on a network of infected machines. The figure is comparable to some of the most successful ransomware schemes of 2017. 2.7 million users were attacked by malicious miners in 2017, marking a 50 percent increase when compared with the previous year, as per the Kaspersky report.

At the same time as cryptocurrency mining malware has risen, instances of large-scale, highly lucrative ransomware campaigns have declined. This is indicative of the fact that attackers are shifting from one illicit money making scheme to another.