Hackers used the websites of Russian government agencies to extract cryptocurrency

According to the deputy head of the National Coordination Center for Computer Incidents of the FSB, Nikolai Murashov, encryption viruses decreased their activity last year and were replaced by malware. In particular, these programs have changed for crypto-jacking or hidden cryptocurrency mining.

Murashov noted that the software for hidden mining uses up to 80% of the free power of the device, and the user may not know about it. According to him, the seizure of server capacities of large organizations for the purpose of mining cryptocurrencies threatens to severely reduce their productivity and harm their main activities.

Murashov said that hackers attack not only large companies but also ordinary users, for example, by mining through a browser while visiting infected web pages. Browser companies have already begun to struggle with this problem. So, in April of last year, the Mozilla Firefox introduced protection against crypto-jacking.

In addition, the number of installations of shadow miners on computers of ordinary users has increased. Last year alone, more than 50,000 such incidents were recorded.

“The scope of activities of shadow miners expanded over the past year. Hackers started using new software that is difficult to track because of the special code structure. Some applications are developed specifically for government servers and gaining control over them. Programs use computing power for mining, but administrators can only notice this during a detailed audit,” said Murashov.

In Russia, the most high-profile incident last year was an incident with miners who mined cryptocurrency on the computers of the nuclear center in Sarov. The attackers, who turned out to be employees of the organization, used the equipment for their own purposes for several years.

Companies around the world are being attacked by ransomware viruses and crypto-jacking. Recently, a cybersecurity company Proofpoint, reported that in 2019, more than half of all public and private organizations in the United States were subjected to virus attacks and phishing. In this regard, regulators are beginning to take decisive action.