"Cryptojacking Malware Sees a 230 Percent Increase in 2022"

Cryptocurrency mining has grown by 230 percent in popularity among cybercriminals in the past year, as it is expensive regarding machinery and energy consumption. If cybercriminals cryptojack someone else's machine to do it, they could make a lot of money. Despite the 'crypto winter,' which has seen the value of cryptocurrencies plummet and the cryptocurrency industry face a liquidity crisis, criminal activity targeting the cryptocurrency industry does not appear to be slowing down any time soon. According to new research, 215,843 new cryptocurrency miners appeared and took over computers in 2022, and cryptocurrency mining can earn cybercriminals around $40,500 per month. The majority of the increase in mining has occurred in the third quarter, with over 150,000 new miners discovered between July and September. Mining for Monero (XMR) is the most common among the samples examined (48 percent). This currency is well-known for its technologies that anonymize transaction data in order to maximize privacy, making identifying addresses trading Monero, transaction amounts, balances, or transaction histories impossible, all of which are very appealing to cybercriminals. Miners are typically distributed via malicious files disguised as pirated content, such as films, music, games, and software. At the same time, unpatched vulnerabilities pose a significant risk to users while also serving as an appealing lure for cybercriminals who use them to spread miners. According to the researchers' telemetry, almost every sixth vulnerability-exploiting attack was accompanied by a miner infection. This article continues to discuss the increase in cryptojacking malware.

BetaNews reports "Cryptojacking Malware Sees a 230 Percent Increase in 2022"