A Swiss report has unearthed that a virus that mines Monero is responsible for one of the largest attacks on the Swiss crypto industry this year.
Trojan malware that was once used for hacking into large-scale banks is now being used to attack crypto-asset exchanges.
Swiss Researchers Uncover Cybersecurity Threat
The news of the computer virus attacking Swiss crypto exchanges comes from Switzerland’s Reporting and Analysis Centre for Information Assurance (MELANI).
Malware has long been used by cyber-criminals to break into major banking systems but has now evolved to attack crypto exchanges.
The report details how MELANI found the Trojan Dridex malware, formally known as Cridex. The malware is usually dedicated to e-banking attacks, but has recently been utilised to attack crypto exchanges – with the incidents of attack greatly on the rise this year.
Monerominer Responsible for Hacking Attempts
The malware in question – Monerominer- has caused the sixth largest attack on the Swiss crypto industry this year. The malware is not just a crypto miner, but also a malware bot and is capable of downloading more malware as it steals information from crypto accounts.
Monerominer can also log and track keystrokes and use them to forcibly encrypt hard disks and hold accounts to ransom.
The malware is very similar to Gozi, a virus originally found in 2009, but now is also evolving to attack crypto exchanges. The Swiss report explains that Gozi is also being used by cyber-criminals to attack crypto exchanges. The report explains how Gozi works:
“This technique consists in using advertisements to mislead the user into downloading manipulated software. In search engines, the advertisements are often displayed above the actual search results, [which] leads to confusion among users.”
The Gozi malware ranked as the ninth largest cyber threat in Switzerland.
