According to a study specializing in cyber security company Cyber Threat Alliance, latent mining of cryptocurrencies grew by 459% compared to last year. Significant growth associated with the use of the exploit EternalBlue, the development of which is believed to be involved in the national security Agency USA (NSA).
EternalBlue exploits vulnerabilities in the Windows operating system. Previously, the program used to attack the virus WannaCry. In April 2017 the hacker group The Shadow Brokers told the world about the secret development of the NSA, which were used for covert mining.
This year’s Cyber Threat Alliance recorded more than 150 thousand cases of covert mining. According to the study, rapid growth does not portend a further decline in illegal activities in this area.
Analysts pointed out that the organizers of the attacks are increasingly choosing devices of the Internet of things (IoT) and actively use routers, smart TV, gaming consoles and DVRs.
“We consider a hidden mining as a threat to cyber security. If hackers launched malicious script on your devices, then most likely, you have a much more serious problem than you think”, — the document says.
The study showed that in 85% of cases the attackers use the processing power of the victims for mining Monero and only 8% of attacks aimed at bitcoin mining.
In most cases, hackers bottom free with the consent of the users that gave access to its facilities (albeit unconsciously), or using browser scripts, for example, Coinhive.
Analysts of the Cyber Threat Alliance suggested that in the long term, when national cryptocurrency will become a widespread phenomenon, a hidden mining can become a “way of war to destabilize the economy.”
“Mining with using illegal scripts can use to increase the level of inflation and organizing “attacks 51%” to limit the ability of Central Banks”, — said the researchers of the Cyber Threat Alliance.
ForkLog previously reported that the developers of Firefox in upcoming releases of popular web browsers implement to automatically lock programs for covert mining.
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