A new report from Kaspersky Lab has found developers continue to target users with malware geared toward illicitly generating or stealing bitcoin, though rates have fallen over the past year.
on cybersecurity threats, bitcoin mining malware accounted for 9% of financial bugs detected.
Programs designed to steal bitcoins from wallets accounted for 6%.
These figures suggest a possible decline in activity. According to Kaspersky Lab's Q2 report from last year, detection rates for illicit mining programs and wallet stealers accounted for 14% and 8%, respectively. The firm's Q1 data, bitcoin mining and wallet theft malware accounted for 12% and 3% of malware types detected.
What this decline might mean isn't clear.
The company's 2013 assessment found that, at the time, year-over-year malware deployments related to bitcoin rose overall. Therefore, it could be suggested that the prominence of bitcoin malware has some relationship with the market price.
The vast majority of financial malware detected by the firm – 83% – related to banking software. Kaspersky also found that mobile threats are on the rise, suggesting that malware developers are taking advantage of rising investments in mobile platforms by the world's major banks.
An average of 40% of computers worldwide were targeted at least once during the second quarter, according to the report.
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