Largest Spam Botnet-Pumping & Dumping Obscure Cryptocurrency[bleepingcomputer]

22 Jan 2018

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Necurs, the world’s largest spam botnet, is currently sending millions of spam emails that push an obscure cryptocurrency named Swisscoin.

Such spam emails are known as pump-and-dump, and the technique relies on sending large quantities of spam to drive interest up towards a particular penny stock.

Spammers usually buy stock in advance at a low price and sell it at a higher value when the spam campaign drives up the price —hence the name of pump & dump.

Necurs pushes cryptocurrencies for the first time

Necurs, a spam botnet believed to have millions of bots, has been known to engage in pump-and-dump spam campaigns for years, being one of its primary activities, besides spreading the Dridex banking trojan, and several ransomware families.

What caught our eye and the attention of several security researchers was the fact that Necurs started promoting a cryptocurrency this week, instead of the usual low-end penny stocks that it got us accustomed to.

In a private conversation with Bleeping Computer, Derek, the security researcher behind the MyOnlineSecurity blog, confirmed to us that this was, indeed, the first time Necurs has promoted a cryptocurrency via one of its infamously large spam campaigns.

For more, click here.