Communications of the ACM
Hackers Hide Cryptocurrency Mining Malware in Adobe Flash Updates
Researchers at Palo Alto Networks have discovered a fake Adobe Flash updater that installs a malicious cryptocurrency mining bot.
Credit: tnwcdn.com
Palo Alto Networks researchers have discovered a fake Flash updater that purports to install a legitimate Flash update, but actually installs a malicious cryptocurrency mining bot that mines the privacy coin Monero.
Because the program really installs a genuine Flash update, many users may be unaware their central processing unit could now by mining cryptocurrency for someone else.
When searching for fake Flash updates, the researchers found 113 instances of files with the "AdobeFlashPlayer" prefix hosted on non-Adobe servers.
The team suspects users are directed to these files via spoof URLs, but they have not been able to confidently conclude how victims arrive at the URLs in the first place.
Previous research suggests more than $250,000 of Monero is mined through illegitimate browser-based mining scripts every month.
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