McAfee: “Total “coin miner” malware has grown more than 4,000% in the past year”

According to a recent study released by McAfee Labs, the number of malware for cryptocurrencies has increased by 4,000% over the past year.

In the McAfee Labs Threats Report, the security company highlighted a significant increase in the number of malware targeting cryptocurrency miners in the first quarter of 2018. This trend seems to have decreased slightly in the second quarter, but in the third quarter, the chain grew by nearly 40%. McAfee notes that the number of this new ransomware family has declined in the past few quarters. This suggests that these attackers are turning to more profitable crypto jacking.

Devices such as IoT devices and routers such as IP cameras are very vulnerable due to the general lack of proper security controls. Although these devices do not have a powerful CPU, the huge amount can still bring valuable rewards to hackers. In the past two years, malware has generally growth, and this trend has not shown signs of slowing down.