A research team from Netlab360, a company that specializes in developing cybersecurity solutions, has found that hackers are transforming thousands of Android powered mobile devices and smart TVs into miners for the Monero cryptocurrency. As reported by ZDNet, these hackers have successfully breached 7,000 handsets in China alone.
According to various experts on mobile security, despite the fact that this latest attack is not as big as some botnets recently, it is highly likely that other hackers will employ the same style, especially in generating cash off of consumers’ smartphones and tablet devices, as well as smart TVs, personal computers, and other smart or connected gadgets.
So how was the attack carried out in the first place? As explained by Netlab360, what the hackers did was make full use of an open port. For those not familiar with the term, it refers to that specific part of an OS that gives a gadget permission to establish a connection with the world wide web.
Hackers then looked for gadgets connected to the Internet by way of port 5555, and in the process, gained unauthorized access to Android running handsets and smart TVs. Once they got in, they proceeded to infect those machines with malware (i.e. worms) that immediately searched for other gadgets to infect.
Having already collected a network of infected machines, the hackers then exploited those devices to run a special program that mines for more Monero. Without thousands of gadgets turned into digital “slaves” that do their bidding, the hackers can mine for more cryptocurrency without ever worrying about spending money to buy new hardware, pay for overhead, or spend for web access.
As pointed out by the Netlab 360 research team, it could have been way, way worse if the hackers had opened the port themselves, but as for now, nobody knows yet how or when the port was opened.
We are only less than a couple of months into the new year, and malware and cybersecurity related news are already grabbing some headlines. In early January, two new security vulnerabilities were discovered -- Meltdown and Spectre -- and Apple has already confirmed that these flaws can potentially impact nearly all iOS powered devices, including iPhones and iPad tablets, as well as MacOS running personal computers. And then hardly a week ago, a research team from Kaspersky Lab revealed that last year alone, an estimated 1.2 million Android mobile users have encountered malware disguised as pornographic content.
