Crypto-mining Malware Saw New Life Over the Summer as Monero Value Tripled (zdnet.com) 10
Malware that mines cryptocurrency made a comeback over the summer, with an increased number of campaigns being discovered and documented by cyber-security firms. From a report: The primary reason for this sudden resurgence is the general revival of the cryptocurrency market, which saw trading prices recover after a spectacular crash in late 2018. Monero, the cryptocurrency of choice of most crypto-mining malware operations, was one of the many cryptocurrencies that were impacted by this market slump. The currency also referred to as XMR, has gone down from an exchange rate that orbited around $300 - $400 in late 2017 to a meager $40 - $50 at the end of 2018. But as the Monero trading price recovered throughout 2018, tripling its value from $38 at the start of the year, to nearly $115 over the summer, so have malware campaigns.
These are criminal operations during which hackers infect systems with malware that's specifically designed to secretly mine Monero behind the computer owner's back. Starting with the end of May, the number of reports detailing crypto-mining campaigns published by cyber-security firms has exploded, with a new report published each week, and sometimes new campaigns being uncovered on a daily basis.
These are criminal operations during which hackers infect systems with malware that's specifically designed to secretly mine Monero behind the computer owner's back. Starting with the end of May, the number of reports detailing crypto-mining campaigns published by cyber-security firms has exploded, with a new report published each week, and sometimes new campaigns being uncovered on a daily basis.
All that volatility just proves... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:All that volatility just proves... (Score:5, Informative)
My understanding is that Monero is one of the few coins with much market liquidity that are designed to be CPU-friendly and not significantly accelerated by ASIC, FPGA, or GPU approaches. So it's easier to make money with it using an arbitrary pwned box.
Re: All that volatility just proves... (Score:3)
Monero is both ASIC-resistant and fungible. It's one of the few digitial-cash equivalents, making it useful for free-market private transactions without surveillance concerns.
It's also a candidate, for these reasons, for doing away with the ad model of Internet revenue - so you would pay your power company instead of the site directly but monero would disintermediate the transaction. Google's Chrome team is actively fighting that shift for obvious reasons.
Where's the part about best practices ... (Score:2)
... to defend?
50% of the journalism is missing from a techzine.
Re: (Score:2)
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
0.0.0.0. coinhive
Primary reason for cryptocurrency malware (Score:1)