Interpol neutralizes thousands of crypto-jacking viruses

Interpol, supported by Japanese TrendMicro, eradicated more than 15,000 malware, says of " crypto-jacking ", Present on routers in Asia.

Interpol Global Complex for Innovation in Singapore (IGCI), in collaboration with the company TrendMicro, led the operation Goldfish Alpha to assess the extent of threats related to crypto-jacking in Asia and define measures to combat this type of attack.

After detecting a major campaign crypto-jacking made easier by exploiting a flaw in branded routers MikroTik, the Japanese company specializing in the development of security software designed and distributed a prevention document.

Experts fromInterpol and the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) from 10 Asian countries then worked to locate the infected routers, inform the victims and use documentation from TrendMicro to eliminate virus.

"Having helped identify more than 20,000 infected routers in the region, we are delighted to say that by November this number had decreased by at least 78%," wrote Trendmicro on its website.

The crypto-jacking, or using the computing power of a third party to extract cryptocurrency without its consent, is a technique increasingly used by cybercriminals to generate income.

Unlike everyone else attacks (phishing, ransomware, data theft, etc.), the crypto-jacking has no major impact on the victim. However, this type of malware slows down and drastically reduces the lifespan of an infected device.