Mining cryptocurrencies can be a costly investment as it takes a monstrous amount of computing power, and thus hackers have started using malware that steals computing resources of computers it hijacks to make lots of dollars in digital currency.
Security researchers at security firm ESET have spotted one such malware that infected hundreds of Windows web servers with a malicious cryptocurrency miner and helps cybercriminals made more than $63,000 worth of Monero (XMR) in just three months.
According to a report published by ESET today, cybercriminals only made modifications to legitimate open source Monero mining software and exploited a known vulnerability in Microsoft IIS 6.0 to secretly install the miner on unpatched Windows servers.
Source : https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/windows-monero-miners.html?m=1
I wonder why web admins use Linux servers 90% of the time.
I still wonder why general consumers use Windows 90% of the time, despite the wannacry stuff and other fiascos.