Thank heavens for crypto, or we wouldn’t have two of the greatest cybersecurity scourges of the 21st century: ransomware and cryptojacking.
Ransomware was the cybercriminal’s darling in 2017, followed shortly by illicit cryptomining aka cryptojacking in 2018. Now that crypto prices are in the toilet (relatively speaking), it seems that cybercrooks may be shifting back to ransomware as their crypto-crime of choice.
However, don’t count cryptojacking out yet. Just this week, news of hackers using stolen NSA malware to drop numerous variants of Monero cryptominers on unsuspecting, unpatched Windows machines hit the wire.
You may have missed that news, but what about this one? How about hackers using botnet malware to compromise Docker containers in order to mount DDoS attacks and implant malicious cryptojacking code?
But wait, there’s more! A new threat named BlackSquid that leverages multiple known vulnerabilities to – you guessed it – drop Monero cryptominers onto unsuspecting systems. Sure, there are other things the cybercriminals behind BlackSquid could do with their malware, but given how perfect Monero is for such malfeasance, why bother?
Remember boys and girls, if you’re conducting any kind of crypto transaction, then you are putting money in the pockets of all miners, including the criminals. How do you sleep at night?
Jason Bloomberg neither owns, nor plans to own, any cryptocurrency or other cryptotoken, either long or short.