Australia ranks second in APAC by cryptojacking threat

Australia is the second-most heavily targeted nation by cryptojacking attacks in APAC, behind only Japan, new research from Symantec shows.

Globally, cryptojacking attacks surged 8500% in the final quarter of 2017 as measured by detections of coin miners on unsuspecting victims’ computers, the security company said. Australia ranks eighth in the world in terms of this new threat.

Cryptojacking involves hijacking a victim’s computing power to mine for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

Symantec’s research shows that cybercriminals have been shifting their focus away from ransomware and towards coin mining as a result of the astronomical rise in the value of various cryptocurrencies.

The company warned that coin miners can slow devices, overheat batteries and, in some cases, render devices unusable. For enterprises, the miners can put corporate networks at risk of shutdown and inflate cloud CPU usage.

“Cryptojacking is a rising threat to cyber and personal security. The massive profit incentive puts people, devices and organisations at risk of unauthorised coin miners siphoning resources from their systems, further motivating criminals to infiltrate everything from home PCs to giant data centres,” Symantec CTO for the Pacific region Nick Savvides said.

“Now you could be fighting for resources on your phone, computer or IoT device as attacks use them for profit. People need to expand their defences or they will pay for the price for someone else using their device.”

The research also found that cryptomining attacks involving IoT devices grew 600% in 2017, while coin mining attacks against Mac OS grew 80%. Browser-based attacks mean that criminals do not need to download malware to a victim’s Mac or PC to carry out cyber attacks.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Myst

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