Coincidental attacks have seen a large increase in 2020

Coincidental attacks have seen a large increase in 2020

While bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies experienced a resurgence late last year, security researchers at Avira Protection Labs have observed a dramatic increase in the number of coinminer malware attacks. Coinminer malware attacks increased 53% in Q2020 XNUMX compared to the number of attacks observed in QXNUMX. However, Avira's research team believes that this increase in coinminer malware activity has directly coincided with the rapid rise in the price of bitcoin as cybercriminals seek to capitalize on renewed consumer interest in cryptocurrencies. -change. The director of Avira Protection Laboratories, Alexander Vukcevic, provided insight into this trend in a press release, saying: "The rapid increase in the amount of malware per miner suggests that malware authors are taking advantage of the price trend in in recent months and are distributing more and more malware that aims to exploit other people's computing resources for malicious purposes. illegal mining activities. This correlation is not surprising, but it worries legitimate minors and investors."

Coin miner malware

One of the latest threats is crypto malware or coinminer malware. Unlike ransomware, however, it works undetected on the user's device, making it particularly insidious. While traditional malware is often used to steal data from users in order to blackmail them, coinminer malware stays in the background as long as possible so you can stealthily mine for cryptocurrency. To do so, it uses the resources of an infected computer or even a smartphone such as the processor, graphics card, memory, and network bandwidth. Currently, there are three main types of coin miners, including executable files, browser-based cryptocurrency miners, and advanced fileless miners. Cybercriminals decide what type of coin miner to deploy based on the device or system whose resources they are trying to mine. Although the bitcoin price has fallen in recent days from its all-time high of €40,675 per coin, cybercriminals will continue to attempt to hijack users' smartphones or computers to mine cryptocurrency as long as these efforts remain profitable. .