Indian government website encounters cryptocurrency mining malware attack
According to cointelegraph reports, crypto-jacking has spread to India. At the moment, a large number of Indian government websites have been infected with cryptocurrency mining malware. The ultimate goal of this malware is to use the attacker’s computer to gain economic benefits for themselves. It was learned that Andhra Pradesh, the municipality of Tirupati and Macherla were both attacked by the cyber.
The malware was originally discovered by a group of security researchers from Guwahati, Shakil Ahmed, Anish Sarma, and Bhuyan. They found that the affected sites are the most visited site in the country’s largest subdomain.
The Indian government also confirmed the authenticity of the attack. As of yesterday, these sites are still mining for criminals. As for how many cryptocurrencies have been dug up, they have not been announced. According to the report, the affected page is running a CoinHive script for mining the cryptocurrency Monero. In addition to the affected government domain names, another 119 Indian websites were found to have been attacked by this cyber attack.
In fact, this type of cryptographic attack can give the implementer a lot of benefits. Just a month ago, researchers at the Aachen University of Technology in Germany estimated that CoinHive scripts running around the world estimated that Monero would receive more than $250,000 a month.