XMRig: Why is Zeus Called the Father of Crypto Mining Malware?

Cryptocurrency is slowly becoming the main part of everyone’s life all over the world although there are many attacks associated with cryptocurrencies. From Bitcoin and Ethereum to Monero, many cryptocurrencies are being hacked by cybercriminals with the help of exchange platforms, phishing, malware and compromise, causing huge losses to both businesses and consumers. In addition, there is a deadly threat that is in the form that completely erodes cryptocurrency at a steady and slow rate: malicious crypto-mining, known as cryptojacking. It is a scheme that can exploit the CPU/GPU processing power of the end users by compromising servers, websites and devices. This type of malware is run through operators. They aim to make money through the victims. Users and organizations are plagued with many codes and illegal crypto-mining, which appears to have led to the emergence of a forerunner: one of these code bases called XMRig. Those attacks of hacking are really there. unless you can choose a reliable platform at this site for crypto mining.

Code Reuse Problem

Here if we talk about malware, then it is a world where more than thousands of strains can be created in a year through which users can be infected with the same code. The most infamous example in the world of code reuse is the banking Trojan whose code is sourced from Zeus v2. This code was leaked in 2011, causing it to be used very frequently, either in variations or adapted to geographic regions or different targets. On the other hand, a GM bot code was leaked in the year 2016 and a similar code was also leaked in the mobile space after which it was reused. BankBot is Another source code, which was leaked in early 2017. It turned out to be a second forerunner in the mobile malware field and has given rise to additional enemies. While the cryptojacking sector started showing increased activity during the year 2017, XMRig is a name that has come up time and again. While this code is not entirely malicious if seen naturally, the unrestricted availability among actors makes it popular and is one of the reasons it has become optimised for illegal mining of the Monero cryptocurrency.

Why choose Monero?

Here if we talk about Monero, it means in Esperanto a “coin” which is called decentralised cryptocurrency. If seen in the Bytecoin blockchain, it has turned out to be more than a fork. This is a project that itself is crowdfunded and an open source one. Monero, which was launched in the year 2014, is a cryptocurrency that boasts of non-traceable transactions and easy mining. Over time its value has increased. Monero supports proof of work algorithms, server CPU or computer, and kryptonite, unlike bitcoin miners, and requires relatively more expensive GPU hardware to mine coins.

While these types of features are quick to attract new, legitimate miners, they are equally attractive to cybercriminals looking to make money without investing in their resources. They use malware or in addition, they use XMRig to mine Monero.

xMRig: Picks of Malicious Monero Miners

Monero is a project by which no miner is supported by special equipment, software or hardware. While there are other three codes that are also available, what appears to be an open source XMRig code. It is a code that is considered a popular choice among cybercriminals. Although seen in the previous revision, some changes have been shown in the hardcoded command-line arguments. This includes the wallet address and mining pool URL of the attacker. It also features changes to some logic that terminates all already running instances of Xmrig to ensure that no one benefits from the same hardware again. Such scope changes take only a short time to be fully executed.