Hackers attack Russian local government website, infiltrate visitor computers and install mining software

On June 14, a government website in Khabarovsk County, Russia was recently attacked by hackers in an attempt to obtain cryptocurrency by exploiting the computers of users visiting the website.

According to local news agency Gubernia, the malware was active for about ten days before being removed from government websites on June 7, 2018.

Vyacheslav Kovalenko, an IT officer at the county administration, said that since the end of May 2018, users had expressed concerns about the functionality of the site because they were being redirected to a malicious website that installed a mining software on their computers without permission.

Officials at the government website, which has an average of about 600 visitors a day and regularly posts information about county government work and official events, issued a safeguarding report advising users that they must block pop-ups in the future to avoid such threats.