Top Cryptomining Malware. Top Ransomware.


In 2018, cryptominers have emerged as the leading attack vector used by cybercriminals to gain access into others systems. Cryptominers are getting advanced makeovers by cybercriminals doing their best to develop innovative cryptominers with ground-breaking capabilities. The recently-discovered cryptominers are not only known for their advanced features, but also for their capabilities to attack a wide range of systems including cloud-based platforms, mobile devices, industrial IT-infrastructure, and servers.

It’s not surprising that cybercriminals have started targeting cloud infrastructures which are based on rich classes of strong computing resources and companies that use cloud platforms to store confidential information. Two of the most striking data breaches that we witnessed this past year were the Monero-miner attack on Tesla’s cloud servers and the data-leak incident that affected FedEx customers.

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Top Cryptomining Malware That Is Dominating the Cybercrime Scene in 2018

The most popular web-based Monero currency miner, Coinhive, undoubtedly occupies the first spot regionally and globally with 25 percent of the companies being affected. With the introduction of Coinhive’s JavaScript mining code in September 2017, the code has been incorporated into thousands of websites allowing cybercriminals to capitalize on visitors’ computing resources. Additionally, the code can be used as substitutes for online advertisements that cybercriminals use to lure visitors to click malicious links. In 2018, threat actors have delivered Coinhive in innovative ways through Google’s DoubleClick service and Facebook Messenger, with code embedded in websites or by hiding code inside YouTube ads. Along with Coinhive, other miners, including Jesscoin and Cryptoloot, have been dominating the malicious cryptomining landscape this year, affecting almost 40 percent of businesses and consumers across the globe.

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RIG Exploit Kit is increasingly being used by cybercriminals to capitalize on system vulnerabilities both regionally and globally. RIG Exploit kits typically work by redirecting people to a landing page that features an embedded JavaScript, the main purpose of which is to identify security flaws in the browser. Cybercriminals use RIG kits to deliver exploits for Internet Explorer, Java, Flash, and Silverlight.  RIG Exploit kits ruled the cybercrime scene in the first half of 2018, moving payloads such as cryptominers and Smoke Loader down the ranking.

XMRig, which is an open-source application for CPU-mining, occupies the third spot across all regions in the United States. The XMrig mining code, which gained popularity in early 2018, has been widely used by a number of crypto-strains, including RubyMiner which is specifically designed to target unpatched Linus servers and Windows. According to Check Point, cybercriminals targeted 30 percent of all business networks to utilize server capacities to support their mining operations.

When it comes to ransomware, Locky, which was first introduced in 2016, occupies the first spot in regional and global lists. Wannacry, which came into the scene in 2017 and made its way to thousands of systems continues to hold a high rank this year.

Read “Consumer Sentiments: Cybersecurity, Personal Data and The Impact on Customer Loyalty” to learn more.

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Fabio Palozza

Fabio is Technical Director EMEA-CALA, responsible for Systems Engineering in the theater. With a long experience, he began his career in software development for aerospace systems before getting into IT vendor ecosystem with Bay Networks/Nortel and Juniper Networks, up to being Technical Director EMEA for the Telecom, Cloud and Content businesses. Fabio writes about technology strategy, trends and implementation.

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