Cryptominers Replace Ransomware as No. 1 Threat

Cryptominers surged to the top of detected malware incidents, displacing ransomware as the No. 1 threat. Comodo Cybersecurity Threat Research Labs’ first-quarter global malware report shows that the world is already a very different place from 2017. During Q1 2018, Comodo Cybersecurity detected 28.9 million cryptominer incidents out of a total of 300 million malware incidents, amounting to a 10% share. The number of unique cryptominer variants grew from 93,750 in January to 127,000 in March. At the same time, the data shows this criminal attention came at the expense of ransomware activity, with new variants falling from 124,320 in January to 71,540 in March, a 42% decrease. The surge in cryptominers started in 2017, after the price of Bitcoin skyrocketed to $20,000. Cryptominer attacks then leaped in 2018 as cryptocurrencies’ market capitalization topped $264 billion.