Surge in Bitcoin cybercrime
The number of financial malware attacks targeting crypto-currency, Bitcoin, increased more than 2.5 times and accounted for 8.3 million incidents in 2013.
These were the findings from the ‘Financial cyber threats in 2013’ study carried out by a security solutions provider, Kaspersky Lab.
Bitcoin was created especially for making anonymous e-payments and has become extremely popular over the last few years. In early 2013, the Bitcoin exchange rate was $13.6. By December it reached a record peak, exceeding $1,200.
During the year several slumps occurred, but since April 2013 the price of a single virtual coin has not dropped below $80, Kaspersky Lab said.
This inevitably attracted the attention of fraudsters, it said.
Adding to the problem, Bitcoins are often easy prey for cybercriminals: if users store Bitcoins on their computers in an unencrypted form, attackers only need to steal the wallet file to get information about the “coins” within and access the victim’s account.
More than 30 samples of finance-related malware were selected for Kaspersky Lab research. Nine of them were the programme designed to steal the crypto-currency. These nine represented a total of 29% of all financial cyber attacks performed using malicious applications.
The tools used by cybercriminals to steal Bitcoins can be divided into two categories, Kaspersky Lab said.
The first category includes programmes created to steal wallet files. Applications in the second category are designed to install software for Bitcoin generation (“mining”) on an infected computer.
In absolute terms the Bitcoin wallet thieves performed twice as many attacks in 2013; however, the tools for “mining” developed more rapidly, the software firm said.
Loading ...