Hackers Use Amazon’s AWS Computing Resources For Mining Bitcoins

RedLock CSI team recently exposed hackers that were using organizations’ cloud computing resources to mine Bitcoins.

In their analysis, they found number of Kubernetes administrative consoles deployed on Amazon Web Services and hackers were executing a Bitcoin mining command from one of the Kubernetes containers.

The worst part is the access keys and secret tokens stored in plaintext within these unprotected Kubernetes instances. Hackers could use these to access critical infrastructure and cause more damage.

According to the report from AdGuard, Examining the website list more closely, we discovered that many of them are from the “gray zone”, mostly pirate TV and video sites, Torrent trackers and porn websites. Judging from these characteristics, we begin to wonder if browser mining is a bad thing and if it should be banned from the Internet.

In September, cybersecurity firm FireEye initially reported that a state-sponsored North Korean campaign was taking place to steal bitcoin from South Korean exchanges. Authorities have said that the attacks were in the form of spear phishing attempts. Since July, 25 employees across four digital currency exchanges have been targeted.

Also Read Over 500 Million Users PC’s are Secretly Mining CryptoCurrency in Browser without Users Knowledge

In total, recent analyses by the IBM X-Force security team reveal that “cryptocurrency mining attacks aimed at enterprise networks jumped sixfold between January and August,” as reported by the MIT Technology Review. The team has also said that newer, alternative tokens to bitcoin are particularly popular, especially in the cases of Monera and zCash.

Over the last month alone, experts from Kaspersky labs have detected several large botnets designed to profit from concealed crypto mining including growing number of attempts.Security experts from Kaspersky detected more than 5,000+ computers with miner without user’s knowledge.