It is estimated that malware groups have raised at least $ 97 million (AUD 128 million) from Monero cryptocurrency miners added to their code.
Research by Palo Alto Networks showed a steep increase in malware samples discovered by the company through 2018 that contained some form of cryptocurrency miner.
Just under 90 percent of the mining malware samples the company analyzed targeted the virtual Monero coin, with Bitcoin being the second most popular coin being attacked by 8.5 percent of the malware samples.
The numbers mean that “around five percent of all Moneros currently in circulation – 15,962,350 XMRs” – have been mined using code that runs on infected devices.
While malware mining Monero has been lucrative overall, it seems like a hit-and-miss for malware writers themselves.
The researchers said that up to half of all wallets associated with malware campaigns “failed to generate any appreciable amount of Monero”.
Although this is “probably due to the fact that the malware was unsuccessful,” the researchers found that the malware’s financial successes could only be well hidden.
Only 10 percent of the wallets analyzed by the researchers held 100 XMR or more ($ 12,207 or AUD 16,117 based on current exchange rates).
Only 4 percent of all wallets had more than 1000 XMR and only 0.68 percent of the wallets had a balance of over 10,000 XMR.
Palo Alto Networks found that stopping cryptocurrency mining malware continues to be a challenge.
“Fighting cryptocurrency miners delivered through malware is proving to be a difficult task as many malware authors limit CPU usage or ensure that mining operations are only performed at certain times of the day or when the user is idle “Said the company.
“Also, the malware itself is delivered through a variety of methods that require defenders to take a deep security approach.”
Earlier this year, server administrators were warned that cryptocurrency mining malware was targeting Windows and Linux boxes.
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