In the first half of 2018, crypto theft reached $ 800 million uae mobile phone directory, almost double the total stolen in 2016 and 2017 combined. Alfonso Ramírez, CEO of Kaspersky Lab Iberia, gives us the keys to combat cyber threats.
2018 has been an intense year for cybersecurity and it continues to be this 2019. Cybercrime with cryptocurrencies has been one of the most prominent activities of the past year, as the increase in the value of cryptocurrencies has increased considerably. The price of Bitcoin and Altcoins has broken records since 2017 and has become a lure for cybercriminals, causing malicious miner distribution and increasing the number of affected users to 2.7 million people (2017 Kaspersky Lab data). In fact, there are web pages created for this purpose that have been compromised in order to install cryptocurrency miners. These threats, undetectable in most cases, have become much more lucrative than ransomware. Malicious mining or ‘cryptojacking’ is different from legitimate mining because cybercriminals do not use their hardware, but that of the victims; they infect computers or lure users into mining sites.
What is ‘cryptojacking’? Threat actors collaborate with potentially unwanted application (PUA) programs to spread miners. However, some small criminal groups try to spread malware using social engineering tricks, such as fake lotteries, for example. Potential victims download a random number generator from a file-sharing service and run it on a PC to participate. It was a simple trick, but very productive.
This year we have seen another trend: the threat actors behind the miners have started using targeted malware techniques. They infect victims, make coins with the CPU or GPU, and earn real money through legal exchanges and transactions. However, it is very difficult for users to know if they are infected.
And how to combat these cyber threats? We recommend taking the following measures:
Always check each link with caution. Do not click on messages from Internet services, instead, type the address in the address bar of your browser.
Pay attention to email attachments and messages from strangers.
Control server load. If the daily load changes suddenly it may be a symptom of a malicious miner
Update the software and use an antivirus with special antimalware protection
And we advise companies to carry out a security audit on a regular basis and use security solutions in terminals and servers. Gulf Phone Number List
