One of the most common and annoying cyberattacks – denial of service (or DDoS) – now has the capability to come with an additional cryptocurrency mining capability.
Security researchers with internet service provider Akamai have noticed something unusual as they have responded to a series of recent DDoS attacks. Hidden beneath the flood of traffic designed to crush a target's web traffic are signs of ransomware.
“It's actually like a DDoS attack, a phishing attack and a ransomware attack that have merged into one,” said Chad Seaman, senior engineer with Akamai's security team, in an interview with Fortune.
A note shared with Fortune, which is buried in an otherwise indisputable line of code, is demanding “50 XMR” or Monero. As of March 3, 2018, the amount of Monero is worth about $ 18,000.
It is not unusual for DDoS attacks to come with ransomware of this kind, although normally such attacks are delivered via email or some other communication medium. It is more of a “two birds, one stone” approach that links the two together.
The logic is simple. As Akamai stated in Fortune, attacks sent via email often slip through due to protection against unwanted actions. Adding the note to the DDoS code ensures that target security analysts will see it as they investigate the attack data.
Monero is more attractive to cyber consumers than a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, because it is harder to trace. While both are based on public ledgers for recording and tracking transactions, Monero's ledgers hide the sender, the recipient, and the amount of each transaction.
The inherent anonymity of Monero also means that the attackers themselves do not necessarily know who has paid or who has not. This fact alone should discourage any pursued interest in the payment.
