Researchers at China's Cybersecurity 360Netlab Society Discovered New Android-based Cryptocurrency Mining Malware That Infects vulnerable Android devices. As reported by 360Netlab, ADB.Miner worm scans can affect any type of Android device, including smartphones, tablets, and TVs. Malware infects the device to extract Monero coins (XMR) and sends all acquired funds to a single wallet.

According to the 360Netlab blog, the cryptocurrency extraction worm ADB.Miner has been actively infecting devices since February 5, successfully infiltrating 7,000 Android devices, mainly in China and South Korea. The researchers point out that the spreading speed of the ADB.Miner is high, with the number of scanned devices doubling every 12 hours.

The malware is broadcast using the publicly accessible Android Debug Bridge (ADB) on an open port 5555, which is normally closed. At the current stage of research, security experts say that they "have no idea how and when this port was opened".

Last week, Cointelegraph reported another case of Monero malware exploitation, the Smorinru botnet, which has managed to exploit more than 9,000 Monero coins since May 2017. Previously, on January 26, Monero-mining malware attacked users' PCs via online advertising spreading Coinhive code, which affected a large number of users and Web sites around the world.