A rapidly spreading and dangerous malware named "Erbium" is currently blasting its way through the internet and is most likely to continue to spread unchecked for the foreseeable future. Erbium is a data and information-stealing tool that targets your passwords, credit cards, cookies, cryptocurrency wallets, and possibly more. Due to its rapid spread and availability, it could be adapted in the future to infect users in new ways.
The personal information thieving malware has been snowballing over time and is found and shared mostly via pirated games and cheats for popular game titles. Part of the reason for its rapid proliferation is that Erbium is what is known as Malware-as-a-service (MaaS), which is essentially subscription malware.
Until today I never knew that malware could have a customer service team, but Erbium does. Erbium's malware service was originally just $9 a week, but its growing popularity has driven the price up to $100 per month, or you can subscribe for a whole year for $1,000. For the money, Erbium subscribers get updates, customer support, and malware with a full set of tools.
Are you scared yet?
Erbium was originally spotted in the wild by Cyfirma, a threat discovery and cyber-intelligence company that first discovered the malware neatly hidden within game cracks. Erbium can steal data found in most of today's popular browsers, gaining access to passwords, cookies, and credit card information.
Erbium can target cryptocurrency users by stealing data from users' digital wallets if installed via a browser extension.
As if that wasn't bad enough, Erbium will also steal cold cryptocurrency wallets, quickly hacking into your Exodus, Atomic, Bytecoin, Ethereum accounts, and more. It has been known to snatch up two-factor authentication codes from several 2FA and password managers.
The vicious malware can also steal Telegram authentication files, Steam and Discord tokens, and screenshots from connected monitors. What's worse is after your data has been stolen it is being shared with threat actors the world over.
How to avoid Erbium
The best and most efficient way to avoid the Erbium malware is not to download illegally cracked games or bots for games. The other way is to make sure you have the best anti-virus software available to you and to make sure it's up to date. It's also a good idea to schedule regular anti-virus and malware scanning of your computer to ensure it's working its best and is being kept safe.
MaaS can be added to the laundry list of security concerns on the modern web and like malware ads and other such threats that we often run into while transversing the internet, awareness is a step towards keeping yourself safe.
Via Digital Trends
