Windows security: Microsoft fights massive cryptocoin miner malware outbreak

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"The hollowed explorer.exe process then spins up a second malicious instance, which drops and runs a coin-mining malware masquerading as a legitimate Windows binary, wuauclt.exe," said Mark Simos, a cybersecurity architect at Microsoft.A key advantage of coin miners is that theres less risk of the attackers infection failing to pay off, according to Renato Marinho, chief research officer at Morphus Labs.Despite Dofoil using legitimate Windows binaries, Microsofts Simos said its cloud machine-learning models for metadata analysis detected the first infections "within milliseconds".The Windows 10 interface that allows apps to connect to antivirus software is truncating files, causing compromised code to come back clean.Its an oldie but a goodie: Creating a system image of your Windows 10 PC in case your hard drive goes belly up and you need to recover your files, settings and apps.

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