According to Chainanlies, cybercriminals are increasingly diverting criminal proceeds into cryptocurrency mining pools to obfuscate their provenance.
The blockchain analytics firm said mining pools, which allow groups of miners to combine computing resources, are used to: in fact Mixer by these malicious attackers.
For more on cryptocurrency crime, about $9 billion was laundered in cryptocurrency in 2021.
“In this scenario, the mining pool acts similarly to a mixer in that it obfuscates the origin of the funds (note: cryptocurrencies cannot be traced through services that include mining pools), and the funds are mined rather than mined. It creates the illusion of revenue from “ransomware,” Chainaracy explained in a blog post.
“Our data suggests that the exploitation of mining pools by ransomware attackers may be increasing. We saw a steady increase in
In fact, the ransomware address sent tens of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency to the mining pool every quarter for the past year or so, the company said.
Chainalysis also said it has seen large amounts of digital money moving from ransomware wallets to exchange deposit addresses that receive large sums from mining pools.
“In cases like this, ransomware attackers may be trying to disguise their funds as mining progresses, even though they didn’t move them to the mining pool first.” rice field.
About 372 exchange addresses at high risk to mining pools have received $158 million from ransomware addresses since early 2018, representing a total of $158 million for all exchanges by all ransomware addresses during the same period. accounted for the majority of the total amount sent to the blockchain, the blockchain analysis firm claimed.
Not only ransomware attackers, but also cryptocurrency scammers are using mining pools to launder money, the report added.
Chainalysis argued that this would be a “solvable problem” if mining pools and hashing services tightened their wallet scrutiny and rejected cryptocurrency sent from addresses linked to criminal activity. It also concludes that exchanges should more carefully consider the full exposure profile of wallets that transfer funds to exchanges using publicly available “know your trades” tools.
