Although the number of Bitcoin mining malware infections has always been on the low side, it is still quite annoying when dealing with such an infection. Most of this malware can be removed quite easily once a decent antivirus software has been installed. BitcoinMine, which is labelled as rather low overall risk rating and infection rate, spread itself through the Kolab worm.

Also read: Mining Malware Education – BitcoinMine

BitcoinMiner Is No Real Threat But Still Annoying

Unlike Bitcoin ransomware infections, the Bitcoin mining malware attacks are not that varied in terms of attack vectors. Most of these infections occur as the software is bundled with harmful tools, such as viruses, worms, or trojans. In the case of BitcoinMiner, the Kolab worm is to blame for infecting users all over the world.

By targeting the older versions of Windows – Windows 2000, XP, and Windows Server 2003 – there is a very niche group of computer users risking infection by BitcoinMiner. While these were some of the more prominent operating systems back in 2011, there are very few people running Windows XP or an older version these days. The only major exception is banking systems, who are known for not updating their operating system until the support has completely dried up.

As the name suggests, BitcoinMiner is a type of malware infecting computers and hijacking the CPU to start generating Bitcoins on behalf of the assailants. By disguising as a regular system process, it was very difficult for users and antivirus software to pick up on this threat, although updated versions of antivirus tools have fixed this problem.

Even though BitcoinMiner is still active in the wild to this very day – probably after undergoing several mutations and improvements – very few people are infected with Bitcoin mining malware these days. Keeping Windows up-to-date, as well as performing regular antivirus scans, should keep computers safe from any harm caused by BitcoinMiner.

Source: Trend Micro

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