This Week in Security News

Welcome to our weekly roundup, where we share what you need to know about the cybersecurity news and events that happened over the past few days. Below you’ll find a quick recap of topics followed by links to news articles and/or our blog posts providing additional insight. Be sure to check back...

D-Link MEA Site Caught Running Cryptocurrency Mining Script—Or Was It Hacked?

Last month the popular torrent website The Pirate Bay caused some uproar by adding a Javascript-based cryptocurrency miner to its site with no opt-out option, utilizing visitors' CPU power to mine Monero coins in an attempt to gain an extra source of revenue. Now D-Link has been caught doing the...

Tales from the blockchain

Cryptocurrency has gradually evolved from an element of a new world, utopian economy to a business that has affected even those sectors of society least involved in information technology. At the same time, it has acquired a fair number of "undesirable" supporters who aim to enrich themselves at...

Why is Malwarebytes blocking CoinHive?

If you've encountered a Malwarebytes web protection block for coinhive.com over the last few weeks, you are either glad about it, angry about it, or don't really care. Since September 19, the second most frequently blocked website for our customers has been coinhive.com, and when we observe that...

After The Pirate Bay, Showtime Websites Also Found Mining Cryptocoins

By Uzair Amir It has only been a week since The Pirate Bay This is a post from HackRead.com Read the original post: After The Pirate Bay, Showtime Websites Also Found Mining Cryptocoins...

Drive-by mining and ads: The Wild Wild West

There seems to be a trend lately for publishers to monetize their traffic by having their visitors mine for cryptocurrencies while on their site. The idea is that you are accessing content for free and in exchange, your computer its CPU in particular will be used for mining purposes. The Pirate B...

Multiple Websites Mine Cryptocurrencies CPU Hijacking

A CPU hijacking vulnerability exists in multiple web servers. A remote attacker can exploit this vulnerability using one of the following miners: CoinHive, CryptoLoot, MineMyTraffic, ProjectPoi and JSECoin. Successful exploitation allows a remote attacker to use a clients CPU for currency mining...

The Pirate Bay Caught Running Browser-Based Cryptocurrency Miner

The world's popular torrent download website, The Pirate Bay, has again been in a new controversy—this time over secretly planting an in-browser cryptocurrency miner on its website that utilizes its visitors' CPU processing power in order to mine digital currencies. The Pirate Bay is the most...

IDN Homograph Attack Spreading Betabot Backdoor

An IDN homograph attack leveraging Adobe’s brand has been discovered, with the malicious site spreading the Betabot backdoor and ultimately infecting compromised machines with cryptocurrency-mining and data-stealing malware. Attacks using internationalized domain name homographs rely on users...

Revamped Nukebot Malware Changes Targets, Adds Functions

A revamped version of the Nukebot banking trojan dubbed Jimmy Nukebot has shifted focus from stealing bankcard data and now acts as a conduit for quietly downloading malicious payloads for web-injects, cryptocurrency mining, and taking screenshots of targeted systems. The code is a modification o...

Hiking Club Malvertisements Drop Monero Miners Via Neptune Exploit Kit

Exploit kit EK activity has been on the decline ever since Angler Exploit Kit was shut down in 2016. Fewer people using Internet Explorer and a drop in browser support for Adobe Flash – two primary targets of many exploit kits – have also contributed to this decline. Additionally, some popular...

CowerSnail — Windows Backdoor from the Creators of SambaCry Linux Malware

Last month, we reported about a group of hackers exploiting SambaCry—a 7-year-old critical remote code execution vulnerability in Samba networking software—to hack Linux computers and install malware to mine cryptocurrencies. The same group of hackers is now targeting Windows machines with a new...

Attackers Mining Cryptocurrency Using Exploits for Samba Vulnerability

Unknown attackers are using a recently patched vulnerability in Samba to spread a resource-intensive cryptocurrency mining utility. To date, the operation has netted the attackers just under $6,000 USD, but the number of compromised computers is growing, meaning that a significant number of Samba...

Warning! Hackers Started Using "SambaCry Flaw" to Hack Linux Systems

Remember SambaCry? Two weeks ago we reported about a 7-year-old critical remote code execution vulnerability in Samba networking software re-implementation of SMB networking protocol that allows a remote hacker to take full control of a vulnerable Linux and Unix machines. To know more about the...

SambaCry is coming

Not long ago, news appeared online of a younger sibling for the sensational vulnerability EternalBlue. The story was about a new vulnerability for nix-based systems – EternalRed aka SambaCry. This vulnerability CVE-2017-7494 relates to all versions of Samba, starting from 3.5.0, which was release...

Cisco Coverage for Adylkuzz, Uiwix, and EternalRocks

When the WannaCry attack was launched a little over a week ago, it was one of the first large scale attacks leveraging the data that was leaked by the Shadow Brokers. At the time the real concern was how quickly we would begin to see other threats leverage the same vulnerabilities. Over the past...

Malicious Cryptocurrency Mining tool turns Computers into Zcash Mining Machines

Since its launch over a month ago, new virtual currency Zcash ZEC has become a significant way for cybercrooks to make money by infecting computers with software mining program. Launched in late October, Zcash ZEC is a new cryptocurrency currency that claims to be more anonymous than Bitcoin, as...

BEWARE! μTorrent Silently Installing Bitcoin Mining Software

If you have recently installed or updated the popular BitTorrent client μTorrent 3.4.2 Build 28913 on your computer, then you read this warning post right now. Users of the μTorrent file-sharing service are complaining that the latest update of software used for torrent downloading is silently...