As we've been saying in 2018, it's all about the crypto.
The cryptocurrency mining craze has escalated much more rapidly than those in IT and InfoSec have likely imagined, predicted, or yet prepared for.
Of course criminals would adopt and abuse the technology—accelerated by code cartels on the dark web—but already out-pacing reported ransomware attacks by a factor of two-to-one?!
At least with ransomware you know you've been hit right away, have a good cry maybe, and then can remediate one way or another. But these processing power leaches, these CPU vampires are insidiously annoying. And more and more profitable, it would seem.
We shared the Krebs story on Coinhive yesterday, and now a new report from Bitdefender sounds another clarion. Of note, data centers are being targeted in wider-scale attacks.
Security Boulevard explains:
Bitdefender telemetry revealed that from September 2017 until February 2018, ransomware reports have followed a descending curve, while coin miner reports have increased by 130 percent by January 2018. Interestingly, cryptojacking is currently one of the fastest spreading cyber threats, already outranking ransomware’s exposure by a factor of 1 to 100 according to Bitdefender’s intelligence, and is recently displaying targeted behavior, by leveraging fileless techniques and exploits to infiltrate organizations and spread laterally.
Ransomware has been notoriously causing serious security concerns, especially when weaponized using government-developed cyber weapons, such as the WannaCry incidents, generating billions of dollars in revenue for cybercriminals.