Malware (short of malicious software) is a type of program designed to interrupt the normal operation of a computer, often stealing private information or slowing down the computer’s processing speed.  Viruses, spyware, Trojans, ransomware and adware are all forms of malware.  Hackers often disguise malware by packaging it alongside video or audio content, which is then downloaded on peer-to-peer file sharing networks.

Known in Internet shorthand as “P2P,” peer-to-peer networks allow users to download media files such as music, movies, TV shows, and games from other connected computers. Sometimes this type of file sharing is legal (such as downloading an open source book), but many times, it is considered illegal “pirating” of copyrighted content. The first well-known generation of P2P software was Napster, which gained fame in the early 2000s after running into legal difficulties over copyright infringement. Other examples you may have heard of include services like Kazaa, Limewire, and BitTorrent.

In the case of Game of Thrones, since the malware files were packaged with the TV show file, but weren’t a part of the file itself, malware creators relied on the widespread use a specific P2P network, BitTorrent, to infect computers. BitTorrent is different from other P2P networks, because it works by downloading pieces of a file from several other computers at once, putting them together correctly once they’ve been copied to your machine. This allows for faster download speeds, but it also means that malware creators can easily sneak malicious software into any popular download (like Game of Thrones).

Of course, there’s a simple way to protect your Internet connected devices from getting infected – don’t download copyrighted content from P2P networks. Of course, this is easier said than done if you have teenagers in the house, which is why I encourage all parents to have a conversation about the dangers of P2P networks before an infection occurs. In addition, make sure you have security software like McAfee All Access running and up-to-date, which will effectively protect all devices in your home.

For more information on this and other emerging threats, be sure to join our team on Facebook, Google+, and on Twitter with @McAfeeConsumer.

The payment network can be accessed from anywhere in the world. There are no sign-up requirements or fees to pay; anybody can join and participate. There is no central organization, no list of approved Bitcoin payment processors. To start with Bitcoin, you have to download and install the client software on your computer or use an online wallet service like instawallet.org. In either case, your Bitcoins are stored in your digital wallet(s) and can be sent to anyone else who has a Bitcoin address. The wallets are not encrypted, the transactions are public, and the anonymity–not absolute, but stronger than in traditional electronic payment systems–is guaranteed by pseudonymous ownership. To receive or to send coins, people just need a receiving or a sending addresses, which are long strings of randomly generated characters that point to a wallet.

There are various ways to get Bitcoins:

• You can trade another currency either directly with somebody who already has Bitcoin or through a Bitcoin-dollar currency exchange. The biggest Bitcoin exchanges today are MtGox and TradeHill. One Bitcoin currently costs roughly US$4.80, but the exchange rate reached $20 in June. I’ve read that a daily swing in the Bitcoin-to-dollar exchange rate of plus or minus 40 percent is common.
• You can get Bitcoins by selling something or providing a service, assuming you can find somebody willing to pay for your product or service in Bitcoins
• You can win Bitcoins by allocating some of your CPU time and becoming a node on the network. This technique is called CPU mining or Bitcoin mining. For each transaction, the system issues a “block.” For a miner, the goal is to solve this block to get paid. The claim is that a Bitcoin block can be found every 10 minutes; but this lottery has a very low rate of success and depends on the CPU size. Some calculations don’t finish in minutes, but in days or years!

Because the system is anonymous, you can find all kinds of offers in the underground market: from drugs to zero-day vulnerabilities. The best marketplaces are anonymous hidden services. They must be accessed via the Tor network.

Lately, various security researchers have discussed issues they encountered:

• Hackers were able to hack into the database of the MtGox Bitcoin exchange firm (The Inquirer)
• Spam messages promoting fake efficient Bitcoin-mining tools were distributed. They contained malware designed to send the wallet.dat files to a remote location (F-Secure/Softpedia) or a miner able to use graphics processing cycles from infected computers to increase the efficiency (Symantec/Softpedia).
• A Bitcoin miner botnet was found in the wild. Using a large number of zombie machines, it attempted to speed up the computation and to mine more virtual currency (Kaspersky/Softpedia). This botnet can also launch DDoS attacks against competing Bitcoin miners (Trend Micro/Yahoo! News).

Most of these alerts are dated June, but the crooks have continued their searches and businesses. September has not ended, but it is clear that the number of suspicious or clearly malevolent programs targeting Bitcoin is exploding. This month, the figure will surpass 1,600 when it was practically zero in May.

At McAfee, most of these threats are detected as Generic PUP.z or generic.dx.

After spam, data theft, blackmail, anonymizer networks, etc., it seems we’ve found a new botnet emerging as another source of illegal income. The cybercriminals have also apparently found a new payment system.

If you want to read more about Bitcoin, I recommend Gavin Andresen’s (from acm.org) presentation: “Bitcoin, the World’s First Person-to-Person Digital Currency” and the Raulo white paper: “Optimal Pool Abuse Strategy.” Regarding the various Bitcoin attack vectors, the following Defcon-19 hacking conference white paper is a must-read: “Hacking the Global Economy with GPUs, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Bitcoin.”