A hacker group is trying to leverage the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine as it distributes malware that is capable of targeting bitcoin wallets.

A report by Bitdefender Labs, a cybersecurity firm that focuses on the digital currency market, highlights how an alleged hacker group disguised one form of malware as another. According to the report, the perpetrators distributed software that they described as capable of disrupting the digital activities of Western governments fighting against Russia.

In reality, the program secretly installs a malware package called Kelihos. This malicious program, first identified nearly five years ago, is capable of stealing the contents of a user’s bitcoin wallets, among other negative effects.

Notably, the most recent attack targeted Ukrainian Internet users disproportionately, accounting for roughly 40% of those impacted. In a statement, Bitdefender analyst Doina Cosovan explained:

“Some of the IPs might indicate the origin of servers specialized in malware distribution or other infected computers that became part of the Kelihos botnet. As most of the infected IPs are from Ukraine, this either means that computers in the country were also infected, or that Ukraine itself is home to the main distribution servers.”

Beyond bitcoin theft, the Kelihos malware is capable of enslaving a host computer to a global botnet, allowing a hacker to use that machine to distribute spam, scan data or even continue the spread of the malicious software.

source: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-malware-exploits-russia-ukraine-crisis/