Portuguese users are being targeted by a new malware codenamed
CryptoClippy that's capable of stealing cryptocurrency as part of a malvertising campaign.
The activity leverages SEO poisoning techniques to entice users searching for "WhatsApp web" to rogue domains hosting the malware, Palo Alto Networks Unit 42
said in a new report published today.
CryptoClippy, a C-based executable, is a type of
cryware known as
clipper malware that monitors a victim's clipboard for content matching cryptocurrency addresses and substituting them with a wallet address under the threat actor's control.
"The clipper malware uses regular expressions (regexes) to identify what type of cryptocurrency the address pertains to," Unit 42 researchers said. "It then replaces the clipboard entry with a visually similar but adversary-controlled wallet address for the appropriate cryptocurrency. Later, when the victim pastes the address from the clipboard to conduct a transaction, they actually are sending cryptocurrency directly to the threat actor."