Attackers Use QNAP File Storage Provider To Mine Bitcoin

Attackers use QNAP file storage provider to secretly mine BTC and the platform even issued an advisory to protect the clients against targeted mining attacks so let’s read more in today’s BTC news.

The hardware company QNAP issued an advisory to the clients last week to the clients after they found an ongoing attack on the network-attached storage devices according to the report by Bleeping Computer. The attack sees affected devices mine BTC secretly. Based in Taiwan, the QNAP is a huge player in the file storage space and these devices contain the computing prowess which can be used to mine BTC thanks to complex calculations each second to maintain the network, the network receives “rewards” which is what made the platform a target of the attack.

QNAP warns users of a new crypto-miner named Dovecat infecting their devices https://t.co/xbgUdQ02CT #cybernews #infosec pic.twitter.com/vz27Uepwh9

— Moix Security (@moixsec) January 22, 2021

The attackers use QNAP and employed their malware dubbed “Dovecat” which affects computing systems since November 2020. The customers of QNAP were targeted as well since the malware ended up gathering all of the computing power available and made their devices unusable for work. On its part, QNAP identified the use of weak passwords for the devices as the main source of malware intrusion. According to the analysis, QNAP NAS is infected once connected to the Internet with weak user passwords.

To protect against this malware, QNAP asked its clients to update and to use longer, more difficult passwords, install malware detecting programs as well as update their NAS devices to the latest software. The platform also added that it was developing its own anti-malware protection for the clients:

 “[QNAP] has made it a priority to develop a solution that will remove Dovecat from infected devices.”

BTC mining malware and cryptojacking attacks increased dramatically over the years especially with the growth of the crypto market. The researchers estimated over 52 million computers become victims of attacks in the first half of 2019 alone, similarly in 2020 as well.

In our recent BTC mining news, we reported that According to the data by CryptoQuant, the South Korea-based Blockchain analytics company, BTC miners at the Chinese mining pool F2Pool started a huge sell-off which crashed the BTC/USD exchange rate by about 20% in less than a day. The company’s CEO Ki Young-Ju listed a series of bearish alerts once BTC started plunging.