Kaspersky Lab presents Monthly Report

The experts at Kaspersky Lab present their monthly report about malicious activity on users' computers and on the Internet. As of late August, Kaspersky Lab's analysts detected 35 unique malicious programs that targeted the Bitcoin system in one way or another. Realizing that their potential earnings largely depend on the number of computers they have access to, the cybercriminals have moved from stealing Bitcoin wallets to using Twitter and P2P network-based botnets. Cybercriminals have resorted to this measure to counter the antivirus companies that may block the operation of a single botnet C&C server if no alternate servers exist in the malicious network.

In August, Kaspersky Lab also discovered that one of the largest botnets conceals actual accounts as they can be deleted by server owners who take a proactive stance against unlawful mining programs. To achieve this, the botnet owners had to create a special proxy server that interacts with infected computers, and their requests are then transferred to an unknown Bitcoin pool. It is not possible to identify the specific pools that the botnet works with and thus block the fraudulent accounts. In this situation, the only means of intercepting such criminal activity is to gain full access to one of the proxy servers.

"Our studies have confirmed that Shady Rat was not the longest-running or the largest, nor even the most sophisticated attack in history. Moreover, we believe that it is unacceptable to publish information about any attacks without a full description of all of the components and technologies used, since these incomplete reports do not allow experts to make all possible efforts to protect their own resources," said Alexander Gostev, Chief Security Expert, Kaspersky Lab.