{"id":49845,"date":"2022-12-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-22T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"urn:uuid:2a0e061d-c9ee-db11-0f13-94d09620f888"},"modified":"2022-12-22T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-12-22T00:00:00","slug":"prevent-cryptocurrency-cyber-extortion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/prevent-cryptocurrency-cyber-extortion\/","title":{"rendered":"Prevent Cryptocurrency Cyber Extortion"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2022 Series<\/a><\/p>\n

To solve crime, the old saying still holds: \u201cFollow the money.\u201d But how do you do that for cybercrimes when the money itself is virtually untraceable as is the case with cryptocurrency?<\/p>\n

Cybercriminals have shifted away to Bitcoin, which can be tied back to unique individuals, to anonymity-based coins such as Monero<\/a>. Several dark web marketplaces now use Monero exclusively.<\/p>\n

On a recent #TrendTalksBizSec episode, Matt Swenson, Division Chief of the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Cybercrime Center, discussed that anonymous crypto coins could be used to track transactions as they travel across the ledger. This makes it impossible to determine the originating and destination addresses in a given transaction.<\/p>\n

Enterprises threatened with cyber extortion demanding cryptocurrency need to protect their business. We explored three recent cyber attack types and how enterprises can take quick action to prevent cyber blackmail.<\/p>\n

Thwarting cyber extortion<\/span><\/p>\n

Cyber Attack #1: Ransomware and malicious apps<\/b><\/p>\n

The growth of ransomware<\/a> is directly correlated to the rise in cryptocurrency. It\u2019s effortless and instantaneous to request a ransom demand payment in Bitcoin rather than arrange a covert cash drop in exchange for stolen data. But a ransomware attack is hardly the only concern to keep CISOs and enterprise security officers up at night.<\/p>\n

Fake or malicious apps<\/a> are increasingly problematic, as they can be used to harvest private keys, personal information, or other sensitive cryptocurrency-related information. These attacks are designed to bait users into buying paid services or clicking on pop-up ads with the promise of bogus cryptocurrency earnings.<\/p>\n

To stop cybercriminals from gaining access to sensitive data and personally identifiable information, implementing a zero trust strategy<\/a> is most critical. In the zero-trust model, a \u201cnever trust, always verify\u201d principal is enforced by only granting permissions to users, devices, applications, or services once they are properly validated and continually reassessed.<\/p>\n

Cyber Attack #2: Cloud-based cryptocurrency-mining attacks<\/b><\/p>\n

Another recent trend<\/a> is the rise of exploits targeting cloud resources, specifically CPU power, to mine cryptocurrency. The cost of a cloud-based cryptocurrency-mining attack can be US $130 per month for a single machine, according to Trend Micro estimates.<\/p>\n

With the ability to instantaneously spin up new instances and the fact that most enterprises rely on multiple clouds, organizations could see a huge spike in resource consumption and related business interruption costs if such malicious uses were to go on undetected. Any organization that does find illicit cryptocurrency-mining on its resources should take it as a warning sign that their cloud infrastructure may be vulnerable to other kinds of attacks.<\/p>\n

Continuous assurance and visibility are essential to ensuring cloud infrastructure<\/a> is properly configured and compliant. These involve:<\/p>\n