ESET researchers have discovered an unknown trojan malware family that spreads through malicious torrents and uses multiple methods to extract as much cryptocurrency from its victims as possible while remaining undetected.
ESET named the threat KryptoCibule and, according to its telemetry, the malware appears to be mainly targeting users in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
This malware poses a triple threat to cryptocurrencies. It uses victim resources to extract coins, attempts to infiltrate transactions by replacing wallet addresses on the clipboard, extracts cryptocurrency-related files, and develops multiple techniques to go unnoticed. KryptoCibule makes extensive use of the Tor network and the BitTorrent protocol in its communication infrastructure.
ESET has detected several versions of KryptoCibule, allowing us to study its evolution from December 2018 to the present. Malware remains active, new possibilities were added during its lifetime and is under constant development.
Most of the victims are located in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and this reflects the user base of the site where the infected torrents are located. Almost all the malicious torrents were available on uloz.to, a popular file sharing site in both countries. In addition, KryptoCibule specifically checks for the presence of ESET, Avast and AVG security products. ESET is headquartered in Slovakia and the rest is owned by Avast, which is headquartered in the Czech Republic.
More technical details about KryptoCibule, you can read the relevant blogpost “KryptoCibule: The multitasking multicurrency cryptostealer”At WeLiveSecurity.