Researchers believe a malware botnet that costs just $160 has interacted with potentially 2,000 machines per week in attempts at stealing crypto wallets and personal information.
Prevailion, the U.S.-based cybersecurity management provider, posted an article on its blog detailing how MasterMana Botnet has likely been active since December 2018 and was still active as late as September 24. With the potential to hit 2,000 machines a week, the botnet may, therefore have interacted with more than 72,000 devices this year.
Cyber Bingo Full House
Authors Danny Adamitis and Matt Thompson described MasterMana Botnet as an “ongoing cyber-crime campaign that hits all of the cyber bingo buzzwords: business email compromise, backdoors, and cryptocurrency wallets”.
Once victims opened the phishing email it would reveal an infected document attachment. Opening this document would then release the bot designed to steal usernames, passwords, cookies, web history and cryptocurrency wallets.
The authors underlined the irony of such a threat: malware that costs just $100, and launched over a $60 virtual private server (VPS) was sophisticated enough to avoid detection from security systems that are becoming ever-more expensive. They added:
While most companies fear they may become compromised by advanced actors, this particular report highlights that actors do not have to rely on advanced tools or techniques to have a serious business impact.
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