An innovative new research published by Microsoft shows that cryptocurrency mining is gradually replacing other malware attacks, in particular ransomware, especially following your boost in value that Bitcoin recorded recently.

Microsoft says it used Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) to gather information on malicious coin mining attempts like Trojanized miners and mining scripts hosted in websites, so it discovered that month after month between September 2017 and January 2018, typically 640,000 systems were compromised.

The organization goes on to explain that crypto mining happens to be a trend because cybercriminals can earn passive income faster in comparison with the case of other attacks, which includes ransomware, for instance, where victims must convinced to meet a decryption key.

"Are the above trends related? Are cybercriminals shifting their focus to cryptocurrency miners as primary revenue stream? It's not likely that cybercriminals will completely abandon ransomware operations before i write again, but the increased amount of trojanized cryptocurrency miners indicates that attackers are really exploring the probabilities of this newer way in which to illicitly earning money," Microsoft says.

"Windows Defender already blocking crypto miners"

Microsoft explains that crypto miners can often be included in exploit kits and be determined by a rather complex process of compromise a device.

One such example is DDE exploits, which themselves include malware and that will be detected by Windows Defender as Trojan:Win32/Coinminer. In this situation, the attack relies on a Word document and that is infected with Exploit:O97M/DDEDownloader.PA and utilizing a PowerShell script, itself detected as Trojan:PowerShell/Maponeir.A, to download a Monero miner.

Windows Defender has already been updated to close miners, and the software giant recommends influenced by additional remedies for prevent such attacks with the enterprise, including looking Windows 10 S where Trojanized miners can't reach systems. Windows 10 S has limitations to the Microsoft Store, so Win32 software can't be installed, however the only browser available is Microsoft Edge.