Cybersecurity academics discoveres a continuous and aggressive malware program that targets Docker servers with Bitcoin (BTC) mining hardware.

In a document released on April 3, Aqua Security published a word of caution about the attack, which has allegedly been going on for months, with thousands of attempts taking place nearly on a daily basis.

The researchers cautioned:

“These are the highest numbers we’ve seen in some time, far exceeding what we have witnessed to date.”

By using its virus analysis toolkit, Aqua Security issued a threat alert over the attack, which deploys an ill-intentioned software referred to as ‘Kinsing’. The Trojan spreads by misusing wrong settings in Docker API ports.

According to the academics report, the program operates an Ubuntu container, which downloads Kinsing and then propagates the malicious software to other containers and computing devices.

The malware’s final objective, accomplished by primarily misusing the open port and then conducting a host of deceptive strategies, is to deploy a crypto mining hardware on the jeopardized computing devices.

Cybersecurity in the Crypto Sector is Alarming

Hackers are raising their game to carry out even more advanced and greedy attacks, which have been noticed by most researchers. As retaliation, enterprise security groups are pooling their resources to build a strong strategy to negate these fresh threats.

Some of their suggestions call for teams to discover all cloud assets and bunch them in a logical framework, assess their validation rules, and amend basic safety policies as per a principle of “least privilege.”

Cybersecurity groups should also scrutinize registries to track the behavior of users who enroll in an unusual manner, in addition to the installation of cloud safeguard systems to reinforce their plan.

Cryptojacking, which is the technical term for the utilization of the computer system’s handling capacity to mine crypto without approval or awareness of system owner, is on the rise.

This is according to a recent report by the cybersecurity company Acronis based in Singapore, which highlighted that 86% of IT professionals are worried about crypto-jacking on their servers.

Dark Web’s Monopoly Market Deters Fraudsters

In related news, Monopoly Market, which is one of Dark web marketplaces, took action on April 6, 2020, to deter scams trying to fool unsuspecting people by marketing drugs and other kinds of therapies for COVID-19 using its platform.

Most users on the platform are tricked into spending up to $200 to procure curing drugs and antidotes for Coronavirus as well as heaps of N95 masks and other surgical goods at an outrageous premium.

Most of these transactions are made in cryptocurrencies, highlighting how easily anonymous digital currencies can be abused to facilitate scams in online market platforms.