There’s a new type of security threat lurking, and it’s not just after your bank account or ID: it wants a digital wallet if you have one.
Anyone keen to spend a bit of physical coin to hold onto some of the digital equivalent might want to watch out, because there’s a new type of security threat out there, and it has your digital wallet firmly in mind.
You’ve probably seen security threats aplenty, and it feels lately that we’re reporting on one weekly, so you probably won’t be shocked to learn that cyber criminals are targeting an area where people are throwing in money big time: cryptocurrency.
While you might be keen on holding onto digital money in a digital piggy bank, scammers are targeting those interested in finance with numerous scams, looking to cash in big on anyone caught in their web. It’s become such a big deal that financial and investment scams are already seeing big numbers at Scamwatch’s scam list for 2021, and now the cryptocurrency threats are coming another way, with malware looking to steal assets.
It means folks looking to trade in various digital currencies may want to watch what they download very carefully, with researchers at Avast finding a form of malware called “HackBoss” which looks for the digital wallets cryptocurrency owners may have when they’re copied to a clipboard during a transfer. When one is picked up, HackBoss replaces the wallet code with a different wallet code, which then sees the digital currency transferred to the owner of the malware and not the original owner.
This new take on malware isn’t limited to a handful of criminals, either, with Avast picking up on over 100 wallet addresses owned by authors of the malware, grabbing all sorts of digital currency, including bitcoin, dogecoin, ethereum, and others.
HackBoss isn’t the only form of crypto scare out there, mind you, with fake apps built to trick you to invest also a danger out in the open.
Both are examples of the ways cybercriminals will go to lengths to get you to hand over your money, and means you may just need to be ever more attentive, and make sure you have some form of security on your devices, as well.
