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Cyber Risks · Unit 42 Palo Alto Networks

Threat Brief: Unauthorized Coin Mining – A New Threat Facing Shoppers and Retailers This Holiday Season

Summary: Unit 42 reported that 63 percent of the unauthorized coin mining sites it found came online in October 2017, a surge it attributes largely to the rising value of digital currencies like bitcoin. The attack runs coin miner code on a visitor's system without consent, slowing it down and in the worst case making a site basically unusable, and it can hit shoppers who are patched and running security protections simply by visiting sites they know and trust.

Why it matters: The code can sit on a retailer's site without the owner's knowledge, making the retailer a victim alongside its shoppers, and the impact lands during the holiday shopping window when site usability is the revenue.

Read the original at Unit 42 Palo Alto Networks ↗

Topics
Detection & Response
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