Following the Money: Comparing cryptocurrency value to illicit mining activity
Summary: Cisco Talos tracked SNORT rules targeting cryptominers and found mining activity now runs at more than double the volume seen several years ago, with the highest activity on record occurring in the last couple of months as Monero hit an all-time high. Apart from a short price drop in early 2021 before the spike, the mining detection graph tracked almost identically to the currency's value, a correlation Talos called surprising given that actors are believed to need significant time to set up mining operations.
Why it matters: Monero is built to run on standard, non-specialized hardware and is privacy focused, so any unmanaged endpoint on your network is a viable victim, and Talos notes miners don't care if a system gets cleaned up because the resources are easily replaced with another victim.
Read the original at Cisco Talos ↗
- Topics
- Zero-Days & Exploits
- Related
- New Sign Drop Exploit Can Abuse Windows Defender to Bypass Security Protections Cyber Risks · Nov 13, 2026New Sign Drop Zero-Day Exploit Turns Windows CLFS Security Feature Into SYSTEM Access Cyber Risks · Nov 12, 2026November Patch Tuesday: An Overflowing Cornucopia of CVEs Cyber Risks · Nov 10, 2026