Monero Malware

Monero is an open-source cryptocurrency or a digital currency that uses cryptography for securing transactions. Monero isn't threatening inherently but is a frequent factor in cryptocurrency-mining Trojans' payloads, which may take over your hardware for generating coins. Users should monitor their systems periodically for telltale symptoms of non-consensual mining and use anti-malware services for removing Monero-mining Trojans when necessary.

The Bitcoin Competitor that Criminals Prefer

As an intended evolution of humanity's financial apparatus, cryptocurrency is, not very surprisingly, becoming just as quickly a tool for criminals and hackers with profit on their minds. Monero is rising to an unfortunate place of stardom in this landscape, as an alternative to currencies like Litecoin, Bitcoin or Ethereum that is the clear favorite of criminals with Trojan-deploying campaigns. Victims of Monero-mining attacks may find that their systems are unstable or, in extreme cases, even unusable.

The traditional method of illicitly-generating Monero involves a threat such as XMRig, CoinMiner, or PsMiner that the criminals drop onto the system after attacking it with brute-force methods, software exploits, or spam e-mails. In most cases, the mining component that creates Monero represents one of the last infection stages and doesn't distribute itself directly. Consequently, malware researchers tend to link Monero-mining attacks to the presence of more invasive 'enabler' threats like the SpeakUp Backdoor.

Monero-mining Trojans can use the CPU, GPU, or other hardware resources of the infected system for creating Monero currency at will, which they place in the threat actor's wallet. These activities may run through injected or otherwise hidden processes that hide the constant running of the additional software. However, malware researchers link poorly-setup mining of Monero with crashes and poor performance that may give users an indication of the infection regularly.

Compensating for the Troubles of a Monero-Using World

A Monero-mining Trojan has the potential, albeit not in 'safe' configurations, of overheating hardware to the point of causing failure and permanent damage to your computer. These cases involve exacerbated symptoms that should alert users to the dangers immediately and are not typical for most Trojans, which implement stealth-based behavior for running as long as possible. Users can patch software for eliminating problems like EternalBlue, use passwords that protect against brute-force attacks and conduct regular system scans for detecting threats before they start mining for Monero coins.

A secondary issue with Monero, which conceals its transactions (unlike, for example, Bitcoin), is that threat actors may demand on payments in it for their future services. This circumstance is especially relevant to file-locking Trojans, whose attacks involve soliciting ransoms in exchange for the unlocking decryptor. Users should be careful about paying in Monero due to criminals possibly taking the money without giving a decryption solution back to them. The anti-malware products of most brands are efficient for removing Monero cryptocurrency-mining Trojans, file-locking Trojans and similar threats.

Monero is more a case of criminals valuing their protection and convenience, due to its anonymity, than its being highly profitable – with one campaign in March 2019, PsMiner, collecting not even sixty dollars equivalent in coinage. However, its ubiquity makes it worth keeping an eye on, and users should be proactive about preventing their systems from becoming Monero mining grounds