An increasing number of malware samples in the wild are using host systems to secretly mine bitcoins. In this post, I’ll look at an affiliate program that pays people for the mass installation of programs that turns host machines into bitcoin mining bots.
Bitcoin is a decentralized, virtual currency, and bitcoins are created by large numbers of CPU-intensive cryptographic calculations. As Wikipedia explains, the processing of Bitcoin transactions is secured by servers called bitcoin miners. These servers communicate over an internet-based network and confirm transactions by adding them to a ledger which is updated and archived periodically using peer-to-peerfilesharing technology. In addition to archiving transactions, each new ledger update creates some newly minted bitcoins.
Story: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/07/botcoin-bitcoin-mining-by-botnet/
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Botcoin: Bitcoin Mining by Botnet
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The following is a update on Bitcoin Mining by Botnet
Quote/ Got a botnet? Thinking of using it to mine Bitcoin? Don't bother
By Shaun Nichols, 24 Jun 2014
Despite an increase in popularity over recent months amongst botnet operators, malware-powered Bitcoin mining brings little to no financial return, say experts.
Security giant McAfee contends in its quarterly threat report (PDF) that commercial botnet controllers and malware packages have been adding cryptocurrency mining options to their list of services offered.
The mining tools - offered alongside botnet task options such as spam runs or distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks - put infected machines to use mining Bitcoin.
The Register/ full read here/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/24/bad_news_malware_infections_are_mining_bitcoin_good_news_theyre_not_making_any_money/
Quote/ Got a botnet? Thinking of using it to mine Bitcoin? Don't bother
By Shaun Nichols, 24 Jun 2014
Despite an increase in popularity over recent months amongst botnet operators, malware-powered Bitcoin mining brings little to no financial return, say experts.
Security giant McAfee contends in its quarterly threat report (PDF) that commercial botnet controllers and malware packages have been adding cryptocurrency mining options to their list of services offered.
The mining tools - offered alongside botnet task options such as spam runs or distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks - put infected machines to use mining Bitcoin.
The Register/ full read here/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/24/bad_news_malware_infections_are_mining_bitcoin_good_news_theyre_not_making_any_money/
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