Virtual crimes are not a recent concern. However, they continue to cause numerous victims, including among cryptocurrency investors.
A recent study Bitdefender found that hackers are using pirated software, such as the Office Package and Photoshop, to steal cryptocurrencies.
As disclosed by Cointelegraph Brazil on Friday (16), the criminal operation uses malware inserted into free programs. In turn, the malware infects the user’s device and obtains account data from exchanges.
Cryptocurrency theft
While cases of cryptocurrency theft on exchanges are more striking, hackers also pursue individual victims.
According to Bitdefender, pirated software has become a “gateway” to criminal practices. Through illegal downloads of the Office Package and Photoshop, for example, criminals access personal data, such as exchange passwords.
The report warns that malware inserted in the victims’ network uses the connection to Mozilla Firefox. Hackers take advantage of the fact that the browser saves search data and access cookies, browsing history and cache.
In addition, the report suggests that criminals possibly engage in extortion. Since the victims are in a position of vulnerability with the collection of personal data.
“Criminals have complete control of the system and can adapt practices based on their interests,” warns Bitdefender.
Action affects BitTorrent users
In addition to the Photoshop and Office suite software, Bitdefender’s research director says that hackers also use BitTorrent.
In an interview with Torrentfreak, Bogdan Botezatu said the malware infiltrates torrents available on BitTorrent.
“Our monitoring shows that they are using users who upload files [seeds] to get the information they want to extract. They create torrents with the data to be stolen, then use the person to spread that information over the network. Hackers can extract data by compressing files and sending them over the network, BitTorrent can help them bypass potential firewalls. ”
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