http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2390290,00.aspResearchers Discover Twitter-Controlled Bitcoin Bot
Security firm F-Secure has discovered a bot that compromises Twitter accounts to help in the generation of Bitcoins.
Bitcoin is a decentralized virtual currency that was formed by programmers in 2009, and is generated by programming computers to calculate highly complex math problems. The more computing power you have, the faster you can create Bitcoins; this is why Bitcoin rigs often look like massive sculptures of connected servers.
According to an F-Secure blog post, the Twitter-based command below generates a bot that can control the Twitter user's computer and add it to a bitcoin mining rig. F-Secure identified bots generated with this command as Trojan.Generic.KD.
Last month Symantec blogged about the potential of creating botnets used to mine bitcoins, without the computer owner ever knowing. This allows the botnet creator to take control of others' computers and add its computing power to his own mining rig.
Bitcoin has found fans in libertarians, hackers of all shades, computer programmers, and more. In its purest form it resolves issues inherent in traditional currencies, like double-spending, inflation, corruption, and inept monetary authorities.
But in reality, it is being undermined by common security issues like exchange breaches, account theft, and FUD. It first gained some mainstream attention in May when hacking posse LulzSec announced it was accepting donations in bitcoin.
For more, see "Which Bitcoin Exchange Can You Trust?"
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