According to a recent report by Check Point Research, crypto mining malware contribute to most of the criminal activity in the industry.
Crypto mining malware
In 2019, despite the price of most assets remaining relatively low, the crime rate stayed quite high. Many high profile criminal activities reared their ugly heads throughout the year including exchange jackings, ransomware threats and of course crypto mining malware attack.
Cybercrime has been quite high in recent years. In 2018 alone, cybercrime resulted in a loss of around 1.5 trillion dollars. Regardless, it is a totally different story when it comes to crime within blockchain networks. The encrypted and random nature of data transfer between addresses makes it hard to be targeted. Secondly, the blockchain and its data cannot be cloned or manipulated. Regardless, cyberattacks still pose a threat to these networks.
Check Point’s research noted that despite the price of cryptocurrencies declining, cloud servers were still a target for crypto mining malware attacks.
A crypto mining malware is a software that attaches itself to a computer device and uses its computing power to mine crypto assets for the attacker. A person can be attacked by malware through an email or file that is infected with malware. This process is conducted in the background of the computer device and causes it to overheat or become extremely slow. As a result, the victim might be seeing higher electricity bills.
Ransomware
Currently, mining malware and ransomware are the two notorious threats to cybersecurity in recent times. While mining malware is done in secret, ransomware is the exact opposite.
The victim just has to click a random infected file and the ransomware would attach itself to his device. The attack encrypts critical files on the device and demands money (mostly Bitcoins) for decrypting them.
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