Report: Hackers employ low-tech malwares to target individuals & steal millions
If it were measured as a country, then cyber-crime — which is predicted to inflict damages totaling $6 trillion globally in 2021 — would be the world’s third-largest economy after the U.S. and China.
Well, that’s quite an impressive yet unfortunate statistic. Now, different news had circulated in the past describing the highly sophisticated hacks thereby witnessing heavy losses. Fast forward now, “low-skilled cyber-criminals” were using malware to swipe funds from crypto HODLers.
A new malwarereport from blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis highlighted the same. Most tend to focus on high-profile ransomware attacks against big corporations and government agencies. However, here’s another angle. Cyber-criminals incorporated less sophisticated types of malware to steal millions in cryptocurrency from individual holders.
The usage of malware to steal or extort cryptocurrency is nothing new. In fact, less sophisticated hackers could take a cheaper “spray-and-pray” approach. Thereby, spamming millions of potential victims.
Malware refers to malicious software that carries out harmful activity on a victim’s device, usually without their knowledge. Malware-powered crime can be as simple as stealing information or money from victims, but can also be much more complex and grand in scale.
It ranges from information-stealing to denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks or ad fraud on a grand scale. Here’s the family tree:
Source: Chainalysis
Many of the malware families described above were available to purchase for relatively little money on cyber-criminal forums.
Speaking numbers
Cryptojackingtopped the list of values received via malware at 73%. Trojans came second at 19%, ‘Others’ totaled 5% while information stealers and clippers represented a
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