A new miner has affected thousands of Internet users over the month

A new malicious miner operating under the guise of simulation games has been discovered in Russia. According to preliminary data, several thousand people have already been affected over the past month.

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Under the guise of free versions of computer games, attackers distributed Trojans that downloaded a modified version of the XMRig miner on torrent trackers (a service for downloading programs). The campaign for its distribution began on December 31, 2024, Kaspersky Lab's global threat research and analysis center told Izvestia.

The miner consumes significant CPU and video card resources, which leads to system slowdowns, freezes and overheating of components, explained Igor Bederov, head of T.Hunter's investigations department. Some miners contain additional modules such as stylers that extract data from cryptocurrency wallets, browsers and other applications, the expert emphasized.

"In the course of their work, users can lose their game accounts, currency or even bank card data. Finally, infected devices can be included in a botnet for mass mining of cryptocurrency in the interests of attackers," Bederov noted.

To avoid falling into the trap, it is worth taking personal security measures, namely, install an antivirus with protection against miners, download games only from official sources, as well as timely update the software and operating system, the expert recommended.

Read more in the exclusive material of Izvestia:

Dangerous games: a new malicious miner has been found in Russia