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BTCs, as individual bitcoin units are known, have recently traded as
high as $130, about four times their value from February. In Bitcoin
vernacular, BTCs are "mined" by computers that solve cryptographic
proof-of-work problems. For each correct block of data submitted,
contributors are collectively rewarded with 50 25 bitcoins.
Legitimate participants, who typically receive a percentage of the
reward based on the number of blocks processed, often use powerful
systems with multiple graphics processors to streamline the process.
But scammers spreading malware on Skype are taking a decidedly more
nefarious approach. Their malicious code hijacks a computer's resources
to mine BTC, according to a blog post
published Thursday by a researcher from Kaspersky Lab. While the
bitcoin-miner.exe malware harnesses only the CPU resources, which are
much slower than GPUs in BTC mining, the attackers have the benefit of
infecting many computers and then chaining them together to mint the
digital currency. Unlike legitimate miners, the criminals don't have to
pay the purchase price of the hardware or pay for the electricity to run
them.
Bitcoin-mining malware has been circulating for almost two years now. Some versions actually tap infected computers' GPUs and can even run on OS X Macs.
The malware spotted by Kaspersky is most likely just a copycat
phenomenon, but there's reason to think it hasn't been a waste of time
for the people who created it. The bit.ly URL that had been hosting the
malware was receiving more than 2,000 clicks per hour just prior to the
Kaspersky blog post going live. That's a fair amount of distributed
computing power.
"As I said, the campaign is quite active," Kaspersky Lab Expert
Dmitry Bestuzhev wrote. "If you see your machine is working hard, using
all available CPU resources, you may be infected."
Post updated to clarify Bitcoin reward system described in second paragraph.
Posted in: hacking news
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