Digimine: the new malware mining broadcast on Facebook Messenger

While some are investing billions of dollars to create their own mining centers, others are just taking advantage of people's computer resources to harvest digital currencies.

Monore's "soft" mining via Facebook
After the malicious script discovered in the Starbucks cafes in Argentina, this time, it is the Facebook Messenger users who have been victims of "traffic mining". The Japanese cyber security specialist Trend Micro has indeed unmasked a new mining malware he dubbed "Digimine", whose main objective is to mine Monero on the computers of those who exchange messages on the platform dedicated Facebook.

According to Japanese society, the malicious robot first appeared in South Korea before spreading to other countries ranging from Vietnam to Ukraine, via Azerbaijan, Venezuela or Thailand.

How Digimine works
The famous malware has been programmed using the freeware automation language for Windows, AutoIt, and specifically affects those who use Facebook Messenger via the Google Chrome browser. Digimine is cleverly concealed in the form of a video file so that the user does not suspect anything and click on the video in question without question.

Once done, the mining robot is automatically downloaded, just like the codex.exe file. The latter is used to communicate with the C & C server which, once contacted, sends to the computer "target" Monero mining files and the settings required for remote control of the user's Facebook account.

The worst thing about Digimine, according to Trend Micro, is that it is able to send links to the friends of the "hacked" Facebook account, and they can be infected by the famous malware.

Facebook's reaction
Having been made aware of this problem, the Facebook team quickly responded by removing numerous links to Digimine on its instant messaging platform. In the wake, they explained via a statement:

"We maintain a number of automated systems to help prevent harmful links and files from appearing on Facebook and in Messenger. If we suspect that your computer is infected with malware, we will provide you with a free virus scan. "

Anyway, the miners did not choose Facebook by chance, since the leader of social networks currently has hundreds of millions of users around the world, which facilitates the spread of malware.