Publications[Insomni'hack 2019] Abusing cryptocurrencies on Android smartphones
On Windows, cryptojacking has become a big issue. It generates important revenues for their authors: even small botnets generate as much as 500 US dollars per day!
"Why not port it to smartphones?" cybercriminals obvisouly thought. Indeed, we do have cryptocurrency malware on Android smartphones since 2014. We discuss some of the recent ones (AdbMiner, HiddenMiner, Clipper...), and reverse engineer live the most interesting ones.
Despite their increasing power, mining on smartphones has its limits. For example, mining Bitcoin on a smartphone does not make sense. We see which cryptocurrencies are mined on smartphones and discuss how profitable this is for cyber-criminals. We follow the earnings of the authors of HiddenMiner, based on live captures we were able to get.