Indian Users Almost 5 Times More Likely to Encounter Crypto Hacking: Microsoft Report

While increased volatility and rising mining difficulties have deterred crypto-mining attacks, users in India and Sri Lanka face a relatively higher chance of encountering one, according to Microsoft’s recent cybersecurity report for countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

Mining attacks infect a user’s computer with crypto-mining malware that allows the hacker to utilize someone else’s computing power to mine cryptos without their knowledge. 

• The report notes India’s encounter rate for such attacks is 4.6 times higher than the global and regional average. The crypto-hack encounter rate for India in 2019 was 0.23%, a decline of over 50% since 2018.
• Users in Sri Lanka and Vietnam also face a high incidence of such attacks.
• In addition to crypto-hacking, malware, ransomware and drive-by download attacks pose big cybersecurity challenges in India, according to the report.
• Although the report states that drive-by download attacks have dipped overall in the region, India registered a rise of 140% in such attacks. These involve the unintentional download of malicious software when users visit a website or use an app and can be used to extract intellectual property or financial information. Singapore, India and Hong Kong are three countries that face the highest incidence of such attacks. 
• The security report compiled by Microsoft, using data from January to December 2019, also states that about 6% of Indian users encountered malware attacks over the last year.
• The Asia-Pacific region also has a higher than average malware and ransomware encounter rate – 1.6 and 1.7 times higher than global averages respectively, according to the report.

Read more: Is Bitcoin Mining Legal in India? Miners Still Don’t Know