Kaspersky lab reports that botnets are increasingly being used to distribute illegal cryptocurrency mining software.
(http://[img]https://www.softmagazin.ru/upload/антивирус%20Касперского.jpg)
In a note published Wednesday, cybersecurity analysts said that the number of unique users subjected to mining without consent has increased dramatically in the first three months of 2018. Such malware is designed to secretly redistribute the computing power of the infected PC to cryptocurrency mining.
According to the Lab, more users were infected in September than in January, and "the threat is still relevant," although it's unclear whether the recent collapse in crypto-market prices will affect infection rates. Analytics firm also said that the significant decrease of attacks such as "denial of service" (DDoS) can be associated with the "conversion of botnets for mining cryptocurrency". As indicated in the note:
The data shows that the owners of many well-known botnets switched their attack vector to cryptocurrency mining. For example, the activity of DDoS botnet Yoyo fell sharply, although there is no data on its closure.
A possible explanation for the increased interest of cybercriminals in crypto-engineering may be that once the malware spreads to victims and police, it is difficult to detect the attackers.
Different types of software, identified and catalogued, the majority reconfigures the use of the processing power of the computer for the allocation of a relatively small resource for mining that does not allow users to note the fact of such activities.
The organization has also studied the reasons for the prevalence of this type of malware in some regions compared to others, with the result that regions with a weak legislative framework for pirated and illegally distributed software are more likely to become victims of such viruses. The report notes:
The more freely unlicensed software is distributed, the more viruses there are. This is confirmed by our statistics, which shows that viruses-miners often get on the victim computers with pirated software.
The impact on us users was 1.33% of the total number of viruses detected, followed by users from Switzerland and the UK, and countries with weak piracy laws, such as Kazakhstan, Vietnam and Indonesia, topped the list.
Link to the source of information (Russian) - https://altstake.io/news/laboratoriyakasperskogo-botnety-pereprofiliruyutsya-na-mayning