Bitcoin Headlines Attract Malware Developers

Bitcoin issues have been front-page news in recent months, especially after its surprising April exchange rate. In the latest McAfee Threats Report, for the second quarter of 2013, we discuss this topic. The following timeline highlights recent events about this virtual currency.

In our report we noted the growing interest in malware Bitcoin miners: malware that hijacks computer resources to mine (create) Bitcoins without the victims’ knowledge. In the same vein, security maven Brian Krebs posted a blog about an affiliate program that pays its members to distribute a Bitcoin mining bot which forces host PCs to process Bitcoin transactions. Here is a look at how the numbers of such malware are growing in our sample database.

SOURCE: blogs.mcafee.com