Η company security Symantec discovered a total of eight different infected applications that had a lot of traffic in the Microsoft Store, the online store for Windows.
According to a Symantec research, eight applications published in the Microsoft Store from April to December 2018 were designed to do mining in Monero cryptocurrencies. Worst of all, these applications received around 2.000 reviews, which means that a significant number of devices have been infected.
Αν και η Symantec επισημαίνει ότι οι αξιολογήσεις των εφαρμογών μπορούν να διογκωθούν και να φαίνονται πολυπληθείς χωρίς να είναι στην πραγματικότητα, και επομένως είναι δύσκολο να γνωρίζουμε πραγματικά πόσοι χρήστες έκαναν λήψη αυτών των εφαρμογών. Οι μολυσμένες εφαρμογές είναι προletterτα περιήγησης, συσκευές αναπαραγωγής πολυμέσων, συσκευές λήψης, tutorials optimizationς battery, video download aids from Youtube and apparently developed by the same person or group.
Once installed and launched on the victims' computers, they download a JavaScript library for Monero coin mining. Users are not informed that their computers are being used for mining, although their devices are significantly lowering their performance due to the high CPU usage in the background.
Symantec says it has already notified Microsoft of the malware and that it has all been removed from the Microsoft Store. However, if you already have one of these applications installed, you should uninstall it as soon as possible. The eight infected illegal mining applications found in the Store are:
- Fast-search Lite
- Battery Optimizer (Tutorials)
- VPN Browser +
- Downloader for YouTube Videos
- Clean Master + (Tutorials)
- FastTube
- Findoo Browser 2019
- Findoo Mobile & Desktop Search
