I read about it a few days ago, and
commented on it on my local board. In a fashion similar to
other types of malware, Laplas Clipper can also be hired by other thugs to use it, paying a certain fee for the time they plan on using it.
As suggested, the concept of "
new" here doesn’t apply to the malware type itself. I figure it’s more in line with expressing the fact that it’s a new kid on the block (as in "
another one"), albeit not unique.
The articles depicts that the similar type of address is generated by the malware through a call to a server (GetAddress()), though it does not depict just how close the address can get to be. The software description on figure 3 indicates that the user can choose to match the prefix or postfix of the original address, yet it does not indicate how many characters it can match.
Figure 9 provides an example where the first four characters of the address are matched (not that difficult, since it was a bc1 type address, as well as the last three. Aside from that, nothing looks remotely similar, so it doesn’t seem better than other instances we might haver read about.
As marketing tends to do, this case might oversell expectations to the potential customer of the malware software: "It will generate a similar address and the person will not notice the difference!" (they state on figure 3). Obviously another danger lurking around though.