HomeBlockchainSecurityKaspersky Lab expects more crypto mining attacks in 2019

Kaspersky Lab expects more crypto mining attacks in 2019

Kaspersky Lab, a leader in cybersecurity, shared data from its internal KSN statistics division showing that virus attacks and malicious software against crypto miners have grown almost fourfold in 2018.

Data from attacks against miners refer to the META region, which includes the Middle East, Turkey and Africa, where hacking has increased from 3.5 million in 2017 to 14.3 million in 2018.

This is because mining is also a widespread activity for direct livelihoods, especially in areas where inflation is high.  

Alongside this phenomenon there has also been an increase of 17% in attacks on banking systems through the use of malware, reaching the impressive number of 500,000.

In this regard, Fabio Assolini, Senior Security Researcher, said:

“The META region is becoming more appealing to cybercriminals, with financial and malicious cyrpotomining attacks taking center stage. We discovered six new ATM malware families in 2018. On the other hand, illegal mining of cryptocurrencies has increased dramatically to overtake the main threat of the last few years: ransomware. We believe the reason behind this is that mining is silent and cause less impact that ransomware, making it less noticeable”.

Hacker attacks are concentrated in this area because there is an emergence of large banking and financial groups, this means that there is still not enough attention to the issue of security and many of the solutions applied are not mature enough.

Even the growing application of biometric systems seems to be surmountable by the most skilled hackers who are able to break through Proof of Concept systems with stolen data.

This type of forecast is one of the largest reports prepared by Kaspersky on the evolution of Fintech and cryptocurrencies.

In the latter regard, the company expects that there will be a general normalization of the entire industry, with a reduction in expectations and that there will be no return to the values of 2017.

As for threats, Kaspersky predicts that these will be essentially linked to the increase in malware for mining, even with the intervention of new players and the continuation in the presence of ransomware, while the mining via the web will increase.

Fabio Lugano
Fabio Lugano
Graduated with honors from Bocconi University, Fabio is a consultant for companies and wounded shareholders of the Banche Venete. He is also the author of "Scenari Economici", and lecturer and analyst of cryptocurrencies since 2016.
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