If our posts about the various crypto-jacking attacks on businesses haven’t provided enough reason to believe the hype, numerous recent studies indicate that crypto-jacking attacks on businesses have surpassed ransomware attacks in popularity. If 2017 was the year of ransomware attacks, 2018 is quickly becoming the year of crypto-jacking attacks.
The craze surrounding cryptocurrency has created the opportunity for hackers to attack businesses in new and innovative ways. Either by infecting a network with a malicious malware that locks businesses out, which in turn provide the opportunity to request cryptocurrency payments without being traced, or leveraging a business’ server in order to utilize their CPU’s to mine cryptocurrency, there is no doubt that businesses need to protect themselves with proper security practices and a cyber insurance policy in order to stay in front of these attacks…which affect businesses of all sizes, across various industries.
According to Raj Samani, Chief Scientist at McAfee, “Attackers targeting cryptocurrencies may be moving from ransomware to coin miner malware, which hijacks systems to mine for cryptocurrencies and increase their profits,” which has increased over 1,000% in the first quarter of 2018. As mentioned cybercriminals are targeting all different types of businesses and leveraging different malicious strategies in order to get paid. For instance, the City of Atlanta was hit with a malware attack, which the hackers requested $50,000 in cryptocurrency in order to unlock their network, but the city officials didn’t oblige, which ultimately led to their systems and processes being deleted and $2,000,000+ in financial losses. Additionally, Tesla recently found out that hackers were utilizing an open AWS server to mine cryptocurrency for over a month without being detected.
All in all, hackers continue to find new and innovative strategies to attack businesses that appear to be low-hanging fruit, which in turn places a lot of pressure on businesses to update their systems, install proper cyber security, invest more time and resources in end-user training, and ultimately get protection from cyber specialists by putting a cyber insurance policy in place.
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If you’d like to read more about the rise of crypto-jacking, click here.