'Drive-by' Cryptocurrency Mining Affecting Millions of Android Users: Malwarebytes

If you haven't been paying attention to the rising scourge of crypto-mining scripts on websites hijacking your computer hardware to mine cryptocurrencies, you should.

From Facebook to YouTube, nobody is plainly safe from this growing menace, with recent reports even suggesting that thousands of government sites in the UK were recently targeted by crypto-mining malware. Now, security researchers at Malwarebytes are reporting that they accept establish prove that millions of Android devices may take become office of the largest "drive-by crypto-mining campaign" targeted specifically at mobile devices.

According to the research published on the company's official blog yesterday, the fact that nearly people practise not utilize any web-filtering or security applications on their smartphones is existence exploited past a section of cyber-criminals to run crypto-mining scripts for Monero (XMR), i of the leading cryptocurrencies correct now.

"In a entrada we kickoff observed in belatedly January, but which appears to have started at least around November 2017, millions of mobile users (we believe Android devices are targeted) take been redirected to a specifically designed page performing in-browser cryptomining".

The exploit uses forced redirects and Trojanized apps, which are not new, but in a curious scrap of social engineering, they are honest about beingness crypto miners. While most cyber-criminals would keep this fact hidden, this new wave of miners is existence clear most its purpose. The attackers claim the mining is being done to pay for server traffic, and will continue to do and then until the visitor can prove they are human and not 'bots', past solving a captcha.

As can exist seen in the above screenshots, the sites ask visitors to solve a captcha and till so will use the telephone'south resources to mine Monero.

Malwarebytes has listed the afflicted domains and also the sites with redirect y'all to these domains. It would be wise to block these from your network if you have the know-how. Ominously, the company warns that the problem is going to get worse with more than such mining attacks likely to hitting the web."The outset (domain) was registered in tardily November 2017, and new domains have been created since then, e'er with the same template". With cryptocurrencies bouncing back from a slump off-late, it would be interesting to meet whether this item modus operandi will proceed in the same vein even afterwards its discovery.

Source: https://beebom.com/cryptocurrency-mining-android-malware-websites/

Posted by: kellyjonan2002.blogspot.com

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