Cryptojacking Focusing on Monero
While 2017 saw a huge increase in cryptojacking, reports show that that figure has exponentially increased in 2018. According to the Cyber Threat Alliance’s September report, cryptojacking has gone up by as much as 500% this year.
Focus on Monero
According to Palo Alto Networks, a cyber security company based out of Santa Clara, California, most mining malware is focusing on the anonymity based cryptocurrency, Monero. According to the firm, 84.5% of malware attacks are focused on Monero, while Bitcoin and other coins make up about 8% and 7% respectively.
The reason why cryptojackers have focusing on Monero is because it is not just a privacy coin, it is also the most valuable privacy coin in the cryptocurrency market. Monero is currently ranked 10th in terms of market capitalization in the cryptocurrency market. The digital currency has a market capitalization of $1.90 billion (at the time of writing).
To ensure anonymity, Monero uses Cryptonight, the proof-of-work algorithm that mixes users’ inputs with other users’ inputs. The algorithm also uses a ring of confidential transactions, which hides the amount of XMR (Monero) being moved. This facility, unfortunately, also makes the crypto a perfect target for cyber criminals.
Monero was already popular with cryptojackers in 2017, however, certain developments have made it the number one target for such criminals this year. One of the biggest changes is the easy availability of cheap mining malware on the dark web.
Province of Amateur Cryptojackers
According to Group-IB, a Russian cyber security company, the dark web has been swamped with cheap and easy to use mining software, the cost of which is as low as $0.50. In 2017, Group-IB had found about 99 posts on the dark web offering to sell cryptojacking software. In 2018, that number has shot up to 477, which a 381.8% increase in cryptojacking software availability.
Thanks to the easy availability of cheap cryptojacking software, even people with no technical background can try their hand at hacking. In fact, cryptojacking is now becoming known as a hobbyist crime, the province of amateur cryptojackers.
It is also possible that the detections have increased this year precisely because it is amateurs attempting hacks rather than experts. It could also be that the detection measures being taken by government and cybersecurity agencies have also improved over the last few years.
Whatever be the case, it has been noted that number of victims of PC cryptojacking has gone up to 2.7 million for 2017-2018 compared to the 1.9 million in 2016-2017.
Kaspersky Lab’s malware analyst Evgeny Lopatin, however, feels that while amateurs and better detection methods may play a part, there has, in fact, been actual growth in the number of malware cryptojacking cases.