I argued yesterday that it is time to place a global ban on Bitcoins .
The reasons were clear. We need to disarm the Cyber Financial Terrorists like those who were behind the WannaCry ransomware and could also be planning for other ransomware attacks with Uiwix and Jaff. We cannot allow these terrorists to benefit by bleeding the market. Even if the current perpetrators are small time fraudsters as some think they are, I anticipate that other professional terrorists including rogue countries such as North Korea and Pakistan would be quick to adopt these ransomware as their own weapons to carry on their proxy war against their own enemies.
Now today’s report says that “Another large-scale cyberattack under way”.
According to this report researchers have discovered a new attack linked to WannaCry called Adylkuzz, which uses the hacking tools recently disclosed by the NSA and which have since been fixed by Microsoft in a more stealthy manner and for a different purpose.
Instead of completely disabling an infected computer by encrypting data and seeking a ransom payment, Adylkuzz uses the machines it infects to “mine” in a background task a virtual currency, Monero, and transfer the money created to the authors of the virus.
This sort of infection had been reported earlier also by one free software and this is a re-play of similar efforts to use the resources of the target computer to mine “Crypto Coins”.
This indicates that all “Unregulated Crypto Currencies” are the likely beneficiaries of such attacks and they need to be addressed as “Tools of Cyber Robbery” though this is more in the nature of a salami attack.
Though Adylkuzz is not directly linked to Bitcoin, it indicates the possibility of “Monero” also developing itself into a currency of the underworld and should be nipped in the bud. Monero is today only in the range of Us$ 27.60 as against Bitcoin which hovers around US$ 1760. It is therefore not as popular as Bitcoin. But soon it can become a Junior Bitcoin and we need to also consider banning such currencies which feed on cyber financial terrorism.
Naavi
