Page 56 - Payout Magazine Online Volume 8.5

Report:

cryptominers

Overtakes Ransomware

as #1 threat

By : GeneZorkin cryptominers. That is not surprising. With a Fatih Orhan, the Vice President of Comodo,
market capitalization greater than $264 billion told Threatpost his company does “believe
ccording to report from Comodo at the end of March 2018, cryptocurrencies there will be a resurgence in ransomware.”
aCybersecurity, during the first three represent a rich target for perpetrators.”
months of this year, “cryptominers surged to the “The pattern we’ve seen is that ransomware
top of detected malware incidents, displacing Kenneth Geers, the chief research scientist will start to decline when the malware code is
ransomware — which declined significantly in at Comodo, said the rise of cryptominers is a not changing and companies’ cyber defenses
volume — as the number one threat.” function of malware trends mirroring trends in are getting better at blocking it,” Orhan said.
the broader market and culture. “The timing is of course uncertain, but we
Published Tuesday, Comodo’s report says do think we will see it come back sometime
the “most notable trend” in cybersecurity “Malware, like cyberspace itself, is merely this year. It could take the form of data
threats of the year to-date is that a reflection of traditional, ‘real-world’ human destruction, instead of ransom, depending on
“cryptocurrencies have become a favorite affairs, and malware is always written for the motivations of the criminals.”
target of cybercriminals.” a purpose, whether it’s crime, espionage,
terrorism or war,” Geers said in a statement In addition to observing a significant rise
“The attackers break into websites to which accompanied the release of Comodo’s in cryptominers, the Comodo report noted
covertly install cryptominers, malware that Q1 threat report. “Criminals’ proclivities to that password-stealers have “become more
uses resources of the visitors’ computers steal money more efficiently were evident with sophisticated and dangerous,” in part by using
to mine cryptocurrencies for the benefit the surge in cryptomining. And the continued new variants of the “Pony Stealer” trojan,
of the perpetrators,” Comodo wrote in its strong correlation of attack volume with an exploit which has been passed around in
report. “Many world-known and respectable current geopolitical events shows hackers of all various forms for several years.
companies’ websites were compromised motivations are well aware of the opportunities
during these attacks. Monero, a form of open- major breaking news provides them.” The new variants of Pony Stealer are “able
source cryptocurrency, has become the most to steal data from wider application range and
popular among cybercriminals, with Bitcoin Over the course of the first three months cryptocurrency wallets as well,” Comodo said
dropping to second place.” of 2018, Comodo says it “detected 28.9 in its report. “It also covers its traces, so victims
million cryptominer incidents out of a total remain unaware they have been compromised.”
Unsurprisingly, what has driven the of 300 million malware incidents,” meaning
increase in cryptominer malware is the size cryptominers represented nearly a 10% share
and profitability of the cryptocurrency market of the total malware incidents observed. Gene Zorkin has been covering legal and
– two items which have drawn a great deal of political issues for various adult publications
recent media coverage. This increase in cryptominers “came at the (and under a variety of different pen names)
expense of ransomware activity,” with new since 2002.
“For the last few years, ransomware was variants of ransomware dropping from 124,320 Reprinted courtesy of YNot
a cybercriminal king,” the Comodo report in January to 71,540 in March, a decrease of
states. “However, in the last quarter the over 40%.
trend has changed. A new player has begun
to grow in strength on the malware market –

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