Approximately 170,000 machines mined for Monero after being infected with Coinhive Malware in Brazil, according to the security intelligence report.
After an investigation by Trustwave security company, it turns out that hackers found a Winbox flaw on MikroTik Routers and acquired admin access to the system. This lets them infect the routers with Monero mining malware, basically Cryptojacking the system.
Cryptojacking is the process of illegal cryptocurrency mining on someone else’s devices. Since mining is a processor-heavy operation, victims feel that their devices substantially slow down.
Due to the attack not only the infected devices were affected but it also impacted the traffic via those routers.
IBM made several recommendations for the Winbox flaw in order to have a relatively lower risk.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Such attacks allow hackers to have almost full control over the network. After that the whole system is left on the initiate of the hackers, meaning they could damage the network irreversibly instead of using it for mining.
Just like normal users, large firms that run hundreds-thousands of devices are in the fishing nets of hackers. Upgrading and protecting come with a cost which is mostly neglected.
Earlier, the Piratebay mined Monero via its users' devices without informing them. After many messages flooded the forum of the portal that the website is hijacking 90% of processing power, Piratebay made an announcement that they are actually mining on users’ computers.