Considered as a country, cybercrime would be the third largest economy in the world after the United States and China, as it is estimated to cause $6 trillion in damages globally by 2021.

That’s a pretty impressive statistic, but nobody expected it. There is no shortage of very sophisticated hacks being reported on all the news sites so the damage is not small. Now even “low-skilled cyber criminals” are using malware to hijack crypto HODLer funds.

Attack the weak

A new malware report from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis highlights the same. Most focus on high-profile ransomware attacks targeting large corporations and government agencies. However, here is a different angle. Cyber ​​criminals have integrated less sophisticated types of malware to steal millions of cryptocurrencies from individual holders.

Using malware to steal or extort crypto is nothing new. In fact, “hands-on” hackers can take an inexpensive “lucky” approach by spamming millions of potential victims.

Malware is software that performs malicious activities on a victim’s device, usually unbeknownst to them. Criminals who use malware can be as simple as stealing information or money from a victim, but they can also be complex and on a much larger scale. This ranges from identity theft to denial of service (DDoS) attacks to large-scale advertising fraud.

Type
description
Eg
Info stealer
Collect logins, files, saved autocomplete histories and crypto wallets from compromised target computers.
Red line
clippers
New text can be pasted to the victim’s clipboard, replacing the text the user copied. Hackers can use Clipper to replace cryptocurrency addresses copied to the clipboard with their own, allowing them to redirect scheduled transactions to their wallets.
HackBoss
cryptojacker
Unauthorized use of the victim device’s processing power to mine cryptocurrencies.
Gluteba
Trojan
Viruses look legitimate, but they can get inside a victim’s computer and damage, disrupt, steal, or cause other unwanted harm.
Banking Trojan Mekotio

The source: chain analysis

The above malware groups can be purchased from cybercrime forums at relatively low prices.

Talking numbers

Cryptojacking (the crime of making money from the victim’s hardware) topped the list of values ​​obtained from malware with a rate of 73%. Trojans (malware but hidden under the guise of legitimate software) came in second at 19%. Other software scored 5% overall, while hackers and data extractors (stealers and clippers) accounted for just 1% each.

The source: chain analysis

The numbers above may just be the tip of the cryptojacking iceberg. Nevertheless, these cases have occurred on a large scale. In 2020, Cisco’s cloud security division report Cryptojacking malware affects 69% of their customers. This means that hackers have stolen huge amounts of computer power.

The amount sent to CEX decreases

According to Chainalysis, the malware addresses “sent most of the funds to the address at the Central Exchange (CEX)”. However, this is not nearly as true.

“Exchanges received just 54% of funds sent from malware addresses in 2021, up from 75% in 2020. DeFi protocols account for much of the disparity at 20% in 2021, after having a negligible share of malware in 2020 had received.

In general, industries tend to focus on large organizational attacks. But something has changed in recent years. Hackers use malware to steal small amounts of cryptocurrency from individual users.

According to a study, 43% of cyber attacks in 2021 will target small businesses report by Purplesec.

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According to AMBCrypto