2018 is wrapping up. Here are a couple things to watch over.

Bitcoin mining: Coinhive malware has been found on the Movistar website, who are a major telecom unit owned by telefonica in Spain. Cryptojackers are using Google Tag Manager to mine the bitcoin currency Monero on hi-jacked machines. Tag Manager enables marketers or anyone who has a website to create code that then lets them inject JavaScript snippets dynamically. So since it isn’t hard-coded in source files on a webserver, it doesn’t get detected. And affected users do not know these tags are serving up malware. But good news: most ad blockers and many A: tools can id and shutdown Coin Hive code.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/opera-just-added-a-bitcoin-mining-blocker-to-its-browser/

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/22/cryptojackers_google_tag_manager_coin_hive/

Ransomware Updates: Tastylock Cryptomix has been discovered by Michael Gillespie. It appends “.tastylock” as an extension to encrypted files and changes contact emails used by the ransomware.

Recommendations to protect your files: current, offline backups; malware detection software that looks for behavioural changes over signature detection; scan attachments before you open them using tools like VirusTotal.

Per Lawrence Abrams

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/tastylock-cryptomix-ransomware-variant-released/