15 Million Users Hit With Cryptocurrency Mining Campaign And WordPress Target Again By Keyloggers

Ilia Kolochenko, CEO at High-Tech Bridge:

Hackers hit over 15 million users with new XMRig Monero cryptocurrency mining campaign

“With the steady growth and popularity of digital currencies, we should expect continuous and persistent growth of attacks targeting the wallets and/or installing malware to mine the coins.

Unlike credit cards, PayPal or bank accounts, digital currencies are a unique opportunity for cybercriminals to use stolen [digital] money without risks of being halted or having their money frozen. Law enforcement and governments have virtually no control over the digital coins and cannot intervene in the game at the moment. Therefore, using all previously available and some emerging techniques of phishing and drive-by-download attacks, cybercriminals will likely focus their efforts on crypto currencies in the near future.”

Keylogger campaign hits over 2,000 wordpress sites

“Unfortunately, the vast majority of WordPress installations is a low hanging fruit for cybercriminals for many years already. By default, if properly installed, configured and up2date, WordPress is a very secure system. However, virtually every WP installation today has some third-party plugins, custom code or missing security patches.

Many hacking teams have a fully automated process to breach and backdoor vulnerable WordPress installations. Worse, some of them started using simple Machine Learning algorithms to improve efficiency and speed of mass compromise. Afterwards, they sell breached websites, or stolen credentials for further password reuse attacks.

Many WP installations are run by non-technical people and are practically abandoned from a security point of view. Therefore, I would unfortunately not expect any improvements in the near future.

Nonetheless, compared to many other popular CMSs, WordPress remains a good choice for website or blog hosting – its attractiveness for cybercriminals is mainly explained by its omnipresent popularity.”