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<\/a><\/p>\nIt was not smooth sailing for the attackers. Even if they were successful, the telecom company scooped up half of the money. Then, the premium phone numbers could be blocked, as could the money collected on corresponding accounts. Finally, perpetrators risked getting busted by the police when cashing out.<\/p>\n
Cryptocurrencies were a game changer. Today, encrypting ransomware is the bane of users who don\u2019t use good cybersecurity. This type of ransomware encrypts user data and demands a ransom payable in a cryptocurrency, and only after payment is made will the attacker (perhaps) send the decryption key to restore file access. Even those far from the world of cyberthreats have probably heard about WannaCry<\/a>.<\/p>\n Although WannaCry was actually a wiper<\/a>, it found notoriety as encrypting ransomware<\/p><\/div>\n For attackers, cryptocurrencies must seem heaven-sent: no need to share the booty with anyone, no one to block their wallet, and, most important, no one to catch them while they\u2019re cashing out. Bitcoin is not really anonymous<\/a>, but an attacker can use alternative cryptocurrencies<\/a> such as Monero or ZCash without fear of being tracked.<\/p>\n This simplification of the monetization process has led to an unprecedented spread of ransomware.<\/p>\n Mining \u2014 reaping new cryptocoins by means of lengthy, complex calculations<\/a> \u2014 is no less popular as a form of cybercrime. A Trojan miner, unlike a Trojan cryptor, does not encrypt anything; it simply starts secretly mining cryptocurrencies<\/a>, using a victim\u2019s computing power and electricity. Truth be told, this scenario is preferable to the previous one, and unprotected users<\/a> may consider themselves lucky if their computers are merely used for covert mining, with no encrypting of valuable data.<\/p>\n Incidentally, over the first eight months of 2017, our products protected 1.65 million users from malicious miners<\/a>, and we expect this figure to cross the 2 million mark by year\u2019s end.<\/p>\n Crafty developers began funding their projects by inserting miners in their software<\/a>, but Pandora\u2019s box opened wide when mining was implemented directly in the browser. After that, everything became even simpler \u2014 now users can be conscripted into a mining scheme just by visiting a website that makes the browser download a script that makes their computer mine money.<\/p>\n<\/a>Malicious miners<\/h2>\n
Web mining<\/h2>\n