[The Hacker News[ Docker Images Containing Cryptojacking Malware Distributed via Docker Hub

With Docker gaining popularity as a service to package and deploy software applications, malicious actors are taking advantage of the opportunity to target exposed API endpoints and craft malware-infested images to facilitate distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and mine cryptocurrencies.

With Docker gaining popularity as a service to package and deploy software applications, malicious actors are taking advantage of the opportunity to target exposed API endpoints and craft malware-infested images to facilitate distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and mine cryptocurrencies.

According to a report published by Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 threat intelligence team, the purpose of these Docker images is to generate funds by deploying a cryptocurrency miner using Docker containers and leveraging the Docker Hub repository to distribute these images.

« Docker containers provide a convenient way for packaging software, which is evident by its increasing adoption rate, » Unit 42 researchers said. « This, combined with coin mining, makes it easy for a malicious actor to distribute their images to any machine that supports Docker and instantly starts using its compute resources towards cryptojacking. »

Docker is a well-known platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solution for Linux and Windows that allows developers to deploy, test, and package their applications in a contained virtual environment — in a way that isolates the service from the host system they run on.

Source : [The Hacker News[ Docker Images Containing Cryptojacking Malware Distributed via Docker Hub