A new cryptocurrency mining malware infected over a million computers in China – and reportedly earned its creators more than $2 million over two years. According to the news report on Monday, the police in China’s Da Lian city arrested more than 20 suspects from an IT firm who allegedly gained control of a large number of computers.
The group profited from illicit cryptocurrency mining. It all started when the hackers created and embedded the malware inside the internet browser plug-ins that they developed for different purposes (enhanced browsing speed etc.) which were shown in ads that reached 5 million computers in the country.
Over a million computers were subsequently infected, mining a total of 26 million Digibyte, Decred as well as Siacoin tokens over the course of two years.
The hackers opted to mine more minor cryptocurrencies since they don’t require such amounts of computing power. This allowed the back-end mining process to be quieter and less likely to be spotted by victims.
The news comes after a previous report in which other groups of hackers were busted in China for colluding with local computer maintenance firms, hacking more than 100,000 computers inside internet cafes – also for mining Siacoin tokens.
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