Significant Increase In Illegitimate Crypto Mining, CTA

By Kapil Gauhar

According to a recent report, CTA (Cyber Threat Alliance) stated that there had been a notable increase in illegal cryptocurrency mining over the last couple of months.

The report says that individuals and organisations were subject to both short as well as long-term threats. The threats might lead to unfavourable consequences for the individuals and enterprises. Thus, it’s important to take the necessary steps to shield their systems. Furthermore, the cryptocurrency mining cases have increased in numbers by 459% in 2018 as a comparison with 2014.

The cryptojackers mine virtual currencies by stealing the processing power of users web browsers, computers, IoT devices, network infrastructure and mobile services. The CTA members say that illegal mining hasn’t reduced in spite of the decrease in the value of cryptocurrencies.

The ‘Illegal Cryptocurrency Mining Joint Analysis’ also incorporated the impact of EternalBlue on business organisations. Mining malware like Smominru and Adylkuzz were habitual to exploit victims. CTA quoted EternalBlue like an example for cryptojackers targeting unpatched and old devices with the assistance of revealed vulnerabilities.

CTA said illegal crypto mining as an indicator of more modern problems. They added, “mining is the canary in the coal mine, warning you of much larger problems ahead”.

According to the reports, even inexperienced attackers can use malware for mining crypto. Thus it results in the victim’s CPU or GPU maxing out as well as damaging their IT equipment. Victims often realise the problem just after the damage.

Moreover, CTA said that experienced attackers have begun hiding their activity and remain undetected for quite a long duration. As indicated by Palo Alto Networks, skilled attackers configure their mining software to use 20% of the machine’s CPU resulting in the attack that’s going undetected.

Illegal crypto mining can lead to the decrease in performance of the victim’s computer and increase in the chances of mechanical failure of the system. They added further that corporation environments have become a frequent target due to their high-powered servers, and the availability of a large number of machines.