Make A Wish NGO Website Under Crypto Mining Malware Attack

The most popular children’s foundation witnessed a cyber-attack on their website.

Criminals seem to have reached a new low, as they have now targeted the site of one of the most popular children’s foundations in the world and infected it with crypto mining malware.

As reported this week, experts at Trustwave, a security firm reported that the website of the famous children’s foundation, Make-A-Wish, was infected by a CoinImp crypto mining script and this script uses the visitors to mine cryptocurrencies from the hackers.   

The Make-A-Wish Foundation site is developed on Drupal, an open-source content management system.

Starting this year, Drupal reported that there had been a patch in their security system that allowed hackers to inject malicious code into specific sites that had not incorporated their security patch.

This spring, an RCE vulnerability was reported by the Drupalgeddon 2 bug in older versions of Drupal which infected over 100,000 sites.

Trustwave researchers believe the Make-A-Wish Foundation website might have been compromised through the same vulnerability.

The foundation subsequently analyzed and eliminated the malicious script in question.

Cryptojacking, which involves the use of malicious code to force other computer users to mine cryptocurrencies without their knowledge, has become a near-epidemic for internet users.

Earlier this year, a Citrix report revealed that a cryptojacking malware had hit at least 59% of UK companies at some point.

In India, cryptojacking is a menace, with over 300,000 routers in Brazil and India found to have been injected with crypto mining malware.

The Economic Times (ET) revealed in September that Indian government websites had not been spared from this phenomenon, stating that widely trusted Indian portals had been exploited by the cryptojacking menace.

According to a security researcher quoted by ET, government websites were targeted due to the high number of online visitors and the trust these visitors have when they visit them.

“So far, we have witnessed multiple government websites getting hacked. Now, injecting crypto jackers is more fashionable as the hacker can make money.”

Also, Read: Malware Attack in Muskegon College Shuts Computer System

Internet security provider McAfee Labs weighed in on the epidemic last week, warning users of a new cryptojacking malware called “WebCobra,” which it said can operate without a trace on a victim’s computer.

The researchers also added:

“As the malware increases power consumption, the machine slows down, leaving the owner with a headache and an unwelcome bill.”

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