A new botnet was found recently, consisting of more than 15,000 compromised servers and has been used to mine various cryptocurrencies, earning its master around $25,000 per month.
Mining cryptocurrencies can be a costly investment, as it requires an enormous amount of computing power and consequently a lot of electricity, but cybercriminals have found an easy money-making solution.
GuardiCore Labs has recently picked up Bondnet. Managed and controlled remotely, the Bondnet is currently used to mine different cryptocurrencies and is ready to be weaponized immediately for other purposes such as mounting DDoS attacks as shown by the Mirai Botnet.
Among the botnet’s victims are high profile global companies, universities, city councils and other public institutions. Operating under the name Bond007.01, the attacker can then take full control of the servers to extract data, hold it for ransom, use the server to stage further attacks and more. Active since December 2016, Bondnet primarily mines Monero, but also ByteCoin, RieCoin, and ZCash.
