![photominer worm photominer worm](https://news-cdn.softpedia.com/images/fitted/340x180/photominer-worm-spreads-via-vulnerable-ftp-servers-mines-for-crypto-currency.png)
Miner-C also features a modular structure made of different parts that do different things, and it uses a unique method of loading its config file. When they try to access the folder, they're actually executing the Photo.scr file, which installs a cryptocurrency mining application on their PC.
#PHOTOMINER WORM WINDOWS#
One of the files it copies is called Photo.scr, a script file that malware coders have modified to use a standard Windows folder icon.īecause Windows has a bad habit of hiding file extensions, whenever the device owner accesses their NAS, they see this file as a folder, fooled by the fake icon. Miner-C is copying files to this public folder on all Seagate Central NAS devices it can find. Miner-C tricks users into installing the cryptocurrency miner
![photominer worm photominer worm](https://news-cdn.softpedia.com/images/fitted/620x348/linux-trojan-mines-for-cryptocurrency-using-misconfigured-redis-database-servers.png)
NAS devices, which are network-connected hard drives, allow users to access files from the local network, but also via the Internet if the administrator chooses to open the NAS drive for remote access.Īccording to Sophos, Seagate Central devices contain a public folder accessible to all users, even anonymous non-logged-in users, which can't be deactivated or deleted. This same functionality is still present in the latest Miner-C version, but security researchers from Sophos say that recent Miner-C iterations are using a design flaw in the Seagate Central NAS devices to place a copy of itself on their public data folders. Miner-C now specifically targets Seagate Central NAS hard drives Miner-C, or PhotoMiner, appeared at the start of June 2016, when a report revealed how this malware was targeting FTP servers and spreading on its own to new machines thanks to worm-like features that attempted to brute-force other FTP servers using a list of default credentials. A malware variant named Mal/Miner-C (also known as PhotoMiner) is infecting Internet-exposed Seagate Central Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices and using them to infect connected computers to mine for the Monero cryptocurrency.