Home
News
- Google Cloud is launching a new security feature to discover the occurrence of cryptojacking. Google announced the news on Monday that the public preview of Virtual Machine Threat Detection (VMTD) is now available on the Security Command Center (SCC).
- Cryptocurrency miners like XMRig are a legitimate program for mining crypto. If in the hands of bad actors, Crypto miners can be abused or leveraged without permission on cloud systems.
- The company’s VMTD will provide “agentless memory scanning” inside SCC to resist the cryptojacking attacks against VMs operating in Google Cloud.
To detect the occurrence of cryptojacking, Google Cloud is coming up with a new security feature.
On Monday, the tech giant announced that the Virtual Machine Threat Detection (VMTD) ‘s public preview is now live on the Security Command Center (SCC). The SSC scans for security vulnerabilities and misconfigurations and hence detects threats against crypto assets.
Product Manager at Google Cloud, Timothy Peacock, the workload is often managed with the help of VM-based architectures since the organizations continue to shift to the cloud.
Cyber attackers are looking for valuable data along with those wanting to execute cryptocurrency mining malware.
XMRig is among cryptocurrency miners who are a legitimate program for mining coins. Crypto miners can be used without permission on cloud systems and even abused if in the hands of bad actors.
In cyptojacking attacks, Miners are deployed on compromised systems to rob the compute resources of the prey. Monero (XMR) is among cryptocurrencies that are often mined in this way by cybercriminals, and coins are sent to wallets handled by Malware’s operators.
As per the latest reports of Google, Threat Horizons report (.PDF), 86% out of compromised sample instances were used for cryptocurrency mining. In contrast, 10% were utilized to perform scans for other vulnerable instances.
VMTD of the company will offer “agentless memory scanning” inside SCC for resisting the cryptojacking attacks against VMs operating in Google Cloud.
According to Peacock, traditional endpoint security depends on deploying software agents to collect signals and telemetry for reporting runtime threat detection. However, cloud technology provides the ability to rethink current models, as in the case of several other parts of infrastructure security.
Google takes a unique approach and commands the hypervisor to gather signals that might suggest infection. VMTD will begin as a way to discover crypto mining; the system will be added with other Google Cloud functions as it strikes general availability.
Users also have the option to try out VMTD by enabling it in SCC settings. Customers can also decide the scope of the scanner, and the service is opt-in.
Steve Anderson is an Australian crypto enthusiast. He is a specialist in management and trading for over 5 years. Steve has worked as a crypto trader, he loves learning about decentralisation, understanding the true potential of the blockchain.
