According to Kaspersky, the devaluation of local currencies will rise more interest in cryptocurrencies. Targeted ransomware attacks are also about to increase in 2021.
According to the report by the security firm Kaspersky, as the repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic affect the economy throughout 2021, there could be an increase in crimes that involves bitcoin.
In the Financial Threats Report for 2021, Kaspersky says that attacks aiming at bitcoins will become more attractive to cybercriminals in the coming year. This is taking place while nations are suffering the consequences of a weakening of their local currencies.
“The pandemic is likely to trigger a massive wave of poverty, and that invariably translates into more people turning to crime, including cybercrime. We could see some economies collapse and local currencies plummet. “
On this issue, although the firm does not delve into details about the effects of the pandemic on the economy, it outlines the greater interest that cryptocurrencies generate in the framework of a crisis that the issuance of inorganic money could create. Besides, the firm also highlights the paralysis of many productive systems in various parts of the world this causes.
In this context, analysts think that the focus would be on bitcoin as the most popular cryptocurrency. However, the study makes a difference depending on the type of crime.
Hackers who operate with ransomware (data hijacking) are then about to change tack and move away from the pioneering cryptocurrency.
This change would respond to the interest of handling cryptocurrencies with greater privacy, such as Monero, so as not to leave traces that the authorities can follow on the blockchain.
“Then they will convert them into bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies,” says Kaspersky’s publication. In this way, privacy-based crypto assets would become the “transit currencies” for criminals.
The new tactic would seek to counteract the detection capabilities that authorities improved and developed to monitor and seize cryptocurrency accounts. They cite as an example the recent withholding of funds by the United States government.
Instead of requiring victims to pay ransom for their data in BTC, hackers from ransomware gangs will prefer to use Monero (XRM). This trend is on the radar since early this year. In recent months, the increase in transactions in Monero has been associated with a much bigger use of XMR on the darknet (dark web), as the report says.
Increase in Ransomware Attacks
This year appeared to be the year for ransomware attacks. The criminals have succeeded most of the times and also received wide media coverage; the report states that there will be a significant increase in these types of crimes by 2021.
In these cases, it is common to demand payment in cryptocurrencies. Besides, this 2020, the application of double extortion to victims became popular, threatening to leak data in case the victims refuse to pay the ransom.
“Organizations, which can suffer by data loss and grueling recovery processes, are a target, with more cybercriminals targeting them with ransomware or DDoS attacks or even both,” the report says.
By: Jenson Nuñez.
