Bitcoin: they fly 24 million dollars by hacking the Windows clipboard

Following the emergence of cryptocurrencies, and in particular bitcoin, many scams were developed by cybercriminals to try to steal the content of these digital portfolios, reports Techradar relayed by Phonandroid, this Wednesday.Recently, Avast alerted users to malware.The latter uses access to the Windows computers to deceive individuals as part of their cryptocurrency transactions.

This software is based in particular on a module originally implemented in the Botnet Mykings, a particularly tough hacking tool."Mykings is a longtime and relentless botnet that has been active since at least 2016," said Avast experts.Thanks to this access to the computer's clipboard, hackers can analyze if it contains an address corresponding to a cryptocurrency portfolio.

Users invited to check the copied/glued addresses

This address, made up of a complex character chain, is often directly copied from a place to be stuck elsewhere, in particular to indicate the portfolio to which we want to make a transaction.At that time, the pirates then replaced in the clipboard the address copied by the address of their own portfolio.The user, not generally not noting the change, therefore sends his transfer directly to the criminal account.

In this way, pirates would have managed to fly nearly $ 24 million in cryptocurrencies, which today invites avast to warn the owners of this virtual currency."In response to this malicious activity, we want to increase awareness of this type of fraud and we highly recommend that people always check the details of the transaction before sending funds," said analysts working for theanti-virus. En avril dernier, un logiciel malveillant au fonctionnement similaire avait déjà été épinglé par Avast​.