Five Cryptomining Malwares in Top 10 list of Malwares in December 2018

Cryptomining malware continues to lead Check Point's Global Threat Index in December 2018.

Coinhive, a crypto mining malware, has topped the index retaining its position in consecutive 13th month in a row. Conhive has been impacting 12% of organizations worldwide.

With 8% reach XMRig, crypto mining software used for Monero cryptocurrency, is the second in the index followed by JSEcoin miner in third with a global impact of 7%. 

Though the cryptocurrencies market has been down substantially in the last few months, crypto miners are still targetting organizations globally, notes the report.

According to Check Point's Global Threat Index December 2018 report,  there four crypto malwares in Top 10 list,

• Coinhive - helps in online mining of Monero cryptocurrency when a user visits a web page transparent to its user accessing the web page and without his/her approval. It is quite possible that machine may crash due to consumption of substantial system resources due to the implanted JavaScript to mine the Monero coins.
• XMRig - is an Open-source CPU mining software and also used for the mining Monero cryptocurrency. It was first identified in May 2017. 
• JSEcoin - is a JavaScript miner and generally embedded into the websites. In exchange for an ad-free experience, in-game currency, and other incentives, JSEcoin runs miner directly in inside the browser.
• Cryptoloot – This crypto mining malware adds transactions to blockchain and helps release new cryptocurrency. Similar to Coinhive it consumes victim’s CPU/GPU power and existing resources. 
• Authedmine – is another version of coinhive that performs online mining of Monero cryptocurrency without user's knowledge or approval the profits with the user. However, Authedmine does ask for website user’s explicit consent before running the mining script

Powered by Check Point’s ThreatCloud intelligence, Check Point’s Global Threat Impact Index and its ThreatCloud Map collects threat data and attack trends from its network of global threat sensors.

In addition, ThreatCloud database holds more than 11 million malware signatures, over 250 million addresses analyzed for bot discovery and over 5.5 million infected websites, and helps in identifying millions of malware types daily.

In December 2018, McAfee Threat Labs December 2018 report highlighted crypto mining malware threats increased by 71% in the quarter ending December 2018. A sharp increase in malware targeting IoT (Internet of Things) devices is also highlighted.