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Cyber Risks · Unit 42 Palo Alto Networks

Threat Brief: What’s Driving the Shift to Cryptocurrency Mining Malware?

Summary: Unit 42 reports a major increase over the past six months in attack campaigns whose goal is mining cryptocurrency, driven by a bitcoin price rise of 2,000% to 4,000% and a Monero gain of more than 30,000% in U.S. dollars over two years. A normal PC mining Monero earns about US$0.25 per day, and a January campaign that infected roughly 15 million systems, largely in the developing world, could have earned attackers well over 3 million U.S. dollars if each stayed infected for at least 24 hours.

Key Takeaway: Mining pays the same per machine in Australia as in Poland, so every infected host is a revenue unit regardless of who owns it - and with 15 million systems in a single campaign, the return comes from volume rather than from any one victim. The same infection routes as ransomware apply here, but a miner is far less likely to be reported or removed, which keeps the operation running quietly on your CPU.

Read the original at Unit 42 Palo Alto Networks ↗

Topics
Malware
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