Cybercriminals are increasingly moving away from ransomware attacks and opting for a more covert strategy of utilizing stolen computing power to mine digital currency. To increase their likelihood of success, these malicious entities constantly vary their tools, tactics, and procedures, remaining adaptive and evasive in their approach.
According to SonicWall, the publisher of cyberattack intelligence and ransomware data, cryptojacking incidents are soaring alarmingly. This comes amid a rapid decline in traditional ransomware attacks as businesses refuse to pay ransom demands.
Cryptojacking
Cryptojacking refers to a form of cybercrime wherein criminals illicitly exploit individuals’ devices, such as computers, smartphones, tablets, and even servers, to engage in cryptocurrency mining. SonicWall’s latest study revealed that Cryptojacking cases soared by almost 400% recording 332 million hits in the first six months of 2023 compared to just 66.7 million during the first half of last year.
The surge in cryptojacking incidents was primarily propelled by record-breaking numbers in January, February, April, and May. During those months, the monthly totals exceeded 77 million instances, surpassing the combined figures for the first six months of 2022 and even exceeding the totals recorded for the entire years of 2018 or 2019.
SonicWall found that the total number of cryptojacking hits had surpassed the 200 million mark and even sailed past 300 million, reaching a new record that exceeded the full-year totals for 2020, 2021, and 2022 (themselves all record-breaking years) combined by the end of June 2023.
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Demographic and Trends
In the United States, cryptojacking increased from 48 million to 211.7 million, representing a 340% surge year to date. Germany also witnessed a triple-digit jump, surging from 139% from nearly three million to more than 7 million. During the same period, the UK also experienced a 479% spike pushing the total number of cryptojacking hits to 6.8 million, compared with 1.2 million last year.
Contrastingly, cryptojacking hits fell by nearly three-quarters, from four million to 1.1 million in the first six months of 2023. India still made the Top 10 list of cryptojacking attempts.
Criminals are increasingly targetting cloud services, cracked macOS applications, as well as Oracle WebLogic servers rather than focusing primarily on hardware endpoints such as smartphones.
Meanwhile, the education sector saw the biggest jump in incidents, with the number increasing by over 320 times, and the average percentage of customers targeted each month rose from 0.19% to 0.55%. Cryptojacking hits on finance also suffered a 4.7x increase during the last six months compared to the same period a year ago.
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