Skidmap Malware Emerging as Potential Cryptocurrency Mining Threat

According to a new analysis reports, the Linux operating system is witnessing threat from the Skidmap malware. Skidmap is infecting the systems through Rootkit capabilities which allows it to mine the cryptocurrency totally undetected. Jakub Urbanec and Augusto Remillano II have reported this threat.  In a report published by these two threat analysts on September 16, it is claimed that this new malware is capable to mine cryptocurrency undetected in the background of the system in addition to facilitating hackers in their nefarious designs. In other words, the system and the confidential information of the user become vulnerable to cyber-attacks and thefts. By loading kernel modules in the system, the malware remains hidden throughout its operation of crypto mining.

Operating Mechanism

In order to load kernel modules, the malware intentionally fakes CPU usage and network traffic of the system. Then it downloads a large number of binary files which ultimately affect the security system of the device. More importantly, these binary files provide a backdoor entry to the system and even set a secret password which allows hackers to have complete access to the infected system.  It’s important to know that this Skidmap is quite advanced in its approach to infecting the system and its unique approach of using Rootkits provides it an ability to stay undetected. Moreover, compared to other malware, it is very difficult to clean Skidmap from the system. That is because Skidmap uses a variety of ways to access the system and even after cleaning it from the infected machine, it comes back to re-infect the system.

So that you know the concept of cryptojacking is not something that crypto world is witnessing for the first time. This kind of threat from the cryptocurrency mining malware is quite common and has been prevalent in the industry for quite some time now. However, the intensity of such attacks has now gathered the pace as data from the report released by McAfee suggests an increase of 29% in such attacks, which is even more interesting that hackers have now widened their attacks by including Macintosh in their list of attacks.