Cybersecurity company Trend Micro revealed that between January and July 2018, the company’s researchers had detected unauthorized crypto mining attacks at a rate of almost 1000% higher compared to the second half of last year.
The company announced this in its report called “Unseen Threats, Imminent Losses.”
Hackers choose crypto mining
One valuable insight that was included in this report was the fact that cybercriminals who used to prefer using malware and ransomware are currently increasingly looking towards crypto mining as a fresh frontier.
“Throughout the next few months, we also saw a noticeable shift away from highly visible ransomware to a more discreet detection: cryptocurrency mining. These damaging threats — from the miners that quietly leech power from victims’ devices to the dangerous vulnerabilities that leave machines open to covert attacks — split limited security resources and divide the focus of IT administrators,” the report noted.
A cryptojacking attack can often escape detection by network security personnel and users can have debilitating consequences for a network or computer equipment such as increased response time and extreme lags, even physical damage of the hardware due to too much workload and overheating, and power usage spikes.
Monero is the preferred crypto
In 2018, there have been various reports of cryptojacking incidents that have been affecting hundreds of websites including government websites and high profile platforms by hackers mining Monero.
The coin generally remains their favorite crypto because it offers anonymity and market liquidity.
It’s also very challenging to catch crypto jacker by tracing Monero wallet funds. The reason is the fact that they use all kinds of crypto blending services in order to launder their funds before they withdraw them.
In order to avoid becoming a victim of cryptojacking it’s recommended that network security admins look for power usage spikes, unusual usage patterns or any kind of unauthorized activity running on their networks.
Leave a Reply