Trojan targetting bitcoin!

[BillyBobZorton]

Password protect your wallet. Or save your coins on some trusted exchanger site.
Also, do not disable your antivirus, just update it and be safer.
I said this about antivirus as many users doing it "because it slows down their CPU" or whatever reason is.
Just don't. Stay protected. I know that sometime virus or trojan is undetected by antivirus, but it's more chances to not get infected by keeping antivirus up and running updates every day. Also, Malwarebytes is a good protection, can work with antivirus without conflict.

Im considering moving to Linux for this reason and forget about updating antiviruses and whatnot.

[pitham1]

A new report from security firm Symantec claims the number of Trojan malware programs targeting bitcoin users has fallen in the past year. they suggest that since the number of users of crypto is still low it is not a good target!

it is a good news but i thought cryptocurrency was getting popular so as a result it will attract evil people too but seems not!
source: http://www.coindesk.com/symantec-bitcoin-financial-trojans/

It might also have something to do with Bitcoin's price?
The bitcoins that the trojans gain fetch far less fiat these days.

[MakingMoneyHoney]

This isnt surprising since most trojans were made in order to mine bitcoins using cpu and gpu devices, but with the difficulty on this level, even a botnet with thousands of computers
cant make enough profit to the attacker. Also before there were alot of wallet stealing trojans that had to do simple task, locate wallet.dat and upload it to attacker, but even wallets are much more secure now.
Bitcoin simply isnt as profitable for attackers as it used to be, so they moved elsewhere.
There now are stories like this one from Verge, which is much more troubling : http://www.theverge.com/a/anatomy-of-a-hack [worth reading]

cheers

Thanks for the article, it's really scary stuff.

[BootstrapCoinDev]

Purely theoretical, all bitcoin clients that do not depend on hardware encrypted keys are susceptible to these kinds of attacks. Solutions like Trezor stop these types of attacks, but the workflow is more difficult than simply using a software wallet (and they're expensive).

Hopefully, things like bitcoin will be a driving force for TPM chips, small crypto chips embedded in your computer, that stop attacks like these.

[siameze]

Someone mentioned the possibility of hoarding coins in an exchange earlier, which is about the worst advice ever. If you want good security you have to be responsible for it yourself. No product alone will do it for you.

[shogdite]

Purely theoretical, all bitcoin clients that do not depend on hardware encrypted keys are susceptible to these kinds of attacks. Solutions like Trezor stop these types of attacks, but the workflow is more difficult than simply using a software wallet (and they're expensive).

Hopefully, things like bitcoin will be a driving force for TPM chips, small crypto chips embedded in your computer, that stop attacks like these.

Yeah I'm looking forward to the price coming down on hardware wallets like Trezor, I'll be sticking to my paper wallets in the meantime

[Nikinger]

Hopefully, things like bitcoin will be a driving force for TPM chips, small crypto chips embedded in your computer, that stop attacks like these.

I don't want my computer to be locked up like iOS one day just to have the advantage to shift the responsibility over my computer to some "goverment trusted" foreigners. If I don't want responsibility which is the downside of freedom, I'm better off with fiat in use with traditional banking.

[bf4btc]

Password protect your wallet. Or save your coins on some trusted exchanger site.
Also, do not disable your antivirus, just update it and be safer.
I said this about antivirus as many users doing it "because it slows down their CPU" or whatever reason is.
Just don't. Stay protected. I know that sometime virus or trojan is undetected by antivirus, but it's more chances to not get infected by keeping antivirus up and running updates every day. Also, Malwarebytes is a good protection, can work with antivirus without conflict.

Im considering moving to Linux for this reason and forget about updating antiviruses and whatnot.

This is the best decision if you need to use windows use it strictly for wallets you trust and leave it offline between uses i do this without any anivirus lol, when you explore the web or need to download anything other than your wallets you have your linux system this is what i do and have never had any problem so far fingers crossed of course. 

[Bitware]

I believe that each bitcoin core installation should include a prompt to backup the wallet on external media (CD, thumbdrive/USBstick, memory card, etc) with the option to encrypt with passphrase. This will assist users who are not tech savvy to at least have a protected hard copy elsewhere.

[pitham1]

Purely theoretical, all bitcoin clients that do not depend on hardware encrypted keys are susceptible to these kinds of attacks. Solutions like Trezor stop these types of attacks, but the workflow is more difficult than simply using a software wallet (and they're expensive).

Hopefully, things like bitcoin will be a driving force for TPM chips, small crypto chips embedded in your computer, that stop attacks like these.

Yeah I'm looking forward to the price coming down on hardware wallets like Trezor, I'll be sticking to my paper wallets in the meantime

Electrum offline wallet for me.
The fact that it can be recovered from the seed is a big comfort.

[ranochigo]

I believe that each bitcoin core installation should include a prompt to backup the wallet on external media (CD, thumbdrive/USBstick, memory card, etc) with the option to encrypt with passphrase. This will assist users who are not tech savvy to at least have a protected hard copy elsewhere.

I think you meant soft copy, hard copy is usually something printed on paper and is not inside any electronic devices. Also, there is a risk of the device getting corrupted.

[shogdite]

I believe that each bitcoin core installation should include a prompt to backup the wallet on external media (CD, thumbdrive/USBstick, memory card, etc) with the option to encrypt with passphrase. This will assist users who are not tech savvy to at least have a protected hard copy elsewhere.

This is a good idea, surprized that option isn't already included in bitcoin core to be honest.

We could also do with an secure noob-friendly way of making paperwallets.

[erikalui]

I have heard many people losing their bitcoins from their wallets due to Trojan attacks. I have McAfee antivirus installed on my PC and it keeps deleting the Trojan viruses but still I feel it's better to have paper wallets.

[mercistheman]

Condom companies should accept btc 

[Amph]

as long as your btc are in a cold storage, malware/trojan cannot do anything

otherwise dedicate a network and a desktop exclusively to your bitcoin client, and don't surf or DL nothing on that machine, 100% safe, unless a real thief enter your house, but that's another story....

[ajareselde]

as long as your btc are in a cold storage, malware/trojan cannot do anything

otherwise dedicate a network and a desktop exclusively to your bitcoin client, and don't surf or DL nothing on that machine, 100% safe, unless a real thief enter your house, but that's another story....

There is no need to dedicate a whole computer for that, you can much more easily create a virtual machine with all your wallets and rest of stuff u need to protect and store it on a usb drive.
Would make much more sence than having a separate computer just to hold your wallet on it.

cheers

[BillyBobZorton]

Condom companies should accept btc 

Lol it would actually be great, I havent heard a single company offering condoms for BTC, maybe it would be a good niche.

[Bizmark13]

A new report from security firm Symantec claims the number of Trojan malware programs targeting bitcoin users has fallen in the past year. they suggest that since the number of users of crypto is still low it is not a good target!

it is a good news but i thought cryptocurrency was getting popular so as a result it will attract evil people too but seems not!
source: http://www.coindesk.com/symantec-bitcoin-financial-trojans/

"In the past year" means from about early 2014 onwards - i.e. only a couple months after the November-December 2013 spike. Back then, the price of Bitcoin was much higher ($700's) and there were a lot more new people entering the community compared to today.

Password protect your wallet. Or save your coins on some trusted exchanger site.

Someone else already mentioned inputs.io as an example of why it's not a good idea to store your coins on a third party exchange or wallet site and they are correct. There have been many other "hacked" online wallet services and exchanges in the past - the most famous being Mt. Gox which was trusted for many years. One of the first to be hacked was MyBitcoin which was a service that even Satoshi recommended (but only for small amounts). Recently, Bitstamp and Bter suffered major hacks too. I wouldn't feel safe having my coins stored on an exchange. For long term storage, offline or paper wallets are the best solution.

Not only trojan but silent miners! That makes 99x PROFIT! Satoshi wont be happy with that 
If satoshi's computer got infected...its over...hacker will probably take over Bitcoin

Silent miners do not profit as much as before. To gain a viable hashrate, you need thousands of the most powerful and biggest hardware. GPU or CPU mining is dead long ago compared to ASIC.

Even for someone with a botnet, it would be pointless trying to mine BTC using ordinary computers. The introduction of ASICs made the threat of botnet mining farms obsolete for Bitcoin. It would make much more sense for a botnet operator to silently mine a CPU or GPU mineable altcoin instead and then convert these coins to BTC via an exchange.

Password protect your wallet. Or save your coins on some trusted exchanger site.

I'm curious, why on earth is a New Password requirement not part of the installation setup for every wallet in existence? I would think it should be automatic that whenever you install a wallet that it asks you to set up a password the first time you run it. The thought that people are downloading wallets and sending BTC to them and not realizing that anyone/anything accessing their PC can simply take the bitcoins, floors me.

Electrum prompts for an (optional) password after installation so I'm not sure why Bitcoin Core doesn't. In fact, even the ability to encrypt the wallet in Bitcoin Core was a recent addition. Before late 2011, it was impossible to encrypt your wallet unless you used a third party tool. It wasn't until allinvain's 25,000 BTC hack (link) in the same year that prompted the devs to add encryption.

[Berau]

A new report from security firm Symantec claims the number of Trojan malware programs targeting bitcoin users has fallen in the past year. they suggest that since the number of users of crypto is still low it is not a good target!

it is a good news but i thought cryptocurrency was getting popular so as a result it will attract evil people too but seems not!
source: http://www.coindesk.com/symantec-bitcoin-financial-trojans/

Hmm.. So are they targeting bitcoin users or just targeting random people and use their computer to mine bitcoins?

[Bizmark13]

Hmm.. So are they targeting bitcoin users or just targeting random people and use their computer to mine bitcoins?

Any malware that uses computers to mine bitcoins would be pointless nowadays due to ASICs. Such malware did once exist but those days are now long gone. The only exception is malware that secretly mines altcoins since many altcoins can still be mined on CPUs and GPUs. The article posted by the OP seems to be talking about bitcoin users specifically:

A new report from security firm Symantec claims the number of Trojan malware programs targeting bitcoin users has fallen in the past year...

...Specific attack types, the report noted, include methods by which a bitcoin addresses is changed prior to a transaction without the user's knowledge...

...Other studies have found that as much as one-fifth of financial malware attacks in 2014 targeted holders of bitcoin.