Illegal Botnet Bitcoin Mining Boom ‘Incoming’

Cyber criminals will increasingly use malware for the mining of bitcoins, it has been claimed, following the discovery of a Skype Trojan used for that very purpose.

Kaspersky uncovered the malware last week, saying it was used to turn the infected machine into a “slave” for bitcoin generation. Attackers had sent various messages in numerous languages to get people to click on a link leading to the malware.

Botnet bitcoin dangers

Bitcoins are generated by cracking complex mathematical problems, requiring significant computing power and a lot of time. Cyber crooks, in order to get their hands on as much computing power as possible without having to buy it, have resorted to using botnets, vast networks of infected computers, to steal their power and solve those problems to mine Bitcoins.

In this case, the attackers may have gained a host of fresh bots, as Kaspersky said the malicious link was being clicked on at an average rate of 2,000 times an hour, when it published a blog on the malware.

Rik Ferguson, director of security research and communication for Trend Micro, told TechWeekEurope it was “absolutely” likely more botnets would add the Bitcoin mining function, especially with their value rising so high. Last week, the value hit $147 per coin before falling again.

He said there was already much criminal interest in bitcoin mining through botnets. He pointed to the ZeroAccess malware, one of the most popular Trojans in the world, which has a bitcoin mining capability.

“Estimates are notoriously tricky things, but it is safe to assume that the criminals behind ZeroAccess can make in excess of $100,000 a day from the combination of bitcoin mining and click fraud,” Ferguson added.

“ZeroAccess is far from the only bitcoin mining malware out there and the recent precipitous rise in value will only make it more attractive.

“Bitcoin exchange rates are designed to increase in value anyway as supply diminishes, it’s built into the system but certainly increased mining activity, whatever the source will drive up value.”

Other threats are hitting Bitcoin firms. Last week, Coinbase, a wallet service, warned of phishing attacks targeting its users, whilst the world’s biggest bitcoin exchange, Mt.Gox, complained of a massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) hitting its servers. Bitcoin wallet site Instawallet shut down after its database was breached.

On the darkweb, however, criminals still do not use bitcoins widely for their own illicit transactions. Liberty Reserve remains the number one choice, according to TechWeek contacts operating on underground forums.

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