{
  "family": "mine",
  "sample_count": 10,
  "category": "advanced_threat",
  "description": "CoinMiner:Win32/Mine (also tracked under generic 'Miner' heuristics) represents a massive class of malware designed to secretly hijack the processing power (CPU and GPU) of infected endpoints to mine cryptocurrency (most commonly Monero) for the financial benefit of the attacker.<br><br><b>Understanding Cryptominers</b><br>To an end-user, the infection manifests as a sluggish, overheating computer with constantly spinning fans and terrible battery life. For a security analyst, unauthorized cryptomining ('Cryptojacking') is a severe resource hijacking event that drastically increases cloud compute costs, wears out hardware, and indicates a critical failure in perimeter security. Attackers frequently use automated worms or exploit internet-facing vulnerabilities to drop miners on hundreds of servers simultaneously.<br><br><b>Execution and Hijacking Mechanics</b><br>Miners are often deployed as secondary payloads by botnets (like Mirai or Sefnit) or via lateral movement using stolen credentials (`T1078`). Upon execution, the payload establishes persistence via WMI event subscriptions (`T1546.003`) or Scheduled Tasks (`T1053.005`). To evade detection, the miner frequently utilizes 'Process Hollowing' (`T1055.012`), injecting the mining engine (often a customized version of the open-source XMRig) into a legitimate Windows process (like `notepad.exe` or `svchost.exe`). The injected process then begins massive mathematical calculations (`T1496`), communicating exclusively via the Stratum protocol (`T1071`) to a remote mining pool to receive work and submit hashes.<br><br><b>Indicators of Compromise & Impact</b><br>The impact is extreme resource degradation, potential hardware failure, and massive electricity/cloud billing spikes. The primary IoC is sustained, 100% CPU/GPU utilization by an unexpected process, or a legitimate process (like `svchost.exe`) consuming massive amounts of CPU without a clear reason. Network logs will reveal persistent outbound connections on unusual ports (like 3333, 4444, or 7777) to known cryptocurrency mining pools.",
  "cta": "Published by the SystemHelpdesk team.",
  "aliases": [],
  "enrichment_level": "expert-seo",
  "faq": [
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "What is Mine and what threat category does it belong to?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Mine is classified as a Advanced Threat. Documented across security telemetry, it is engineered to execute unauthorized operations, establish persistent footholds on target endpoints, and facilitate malicious campaigns targeting enterprise and individual environments."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "How does Mine establish persistence and evade defensive controls?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Mine typically establishes persistence through registry run keys, scheduled tasks, or service installations, while evading signature-based antivirus solutions through code obfuscation, memory injection, or anti-analysis sandbox checks."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "What are the essential incident response steps for mitigating a Mine compromise?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Security teams responding to Mine should immediately isolate affected endpoints from the network, perform memory triage to capture volatile forensic artifacts, audit registry and startup persistence mechanisms, revoke exposed user credentials, and restore systems from verified, clean backups."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "What lateral movement and credential access tactics does Mine leverage in enterprise intrusions?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Mine frequently utilizes privileged account harvesting techniques such as LSASS memory dumping, Kerberoasting, and token impersonation to escalate privileges. Once administrative credentials are acquired, it pivots across the victim network utilizing living-off-the-land binaries (LOLBins) such as WMI, PowerShell remoting, and PsExec, or abuses remote desktop protocols (RDP) to reach critical internal repositories and domain controllers."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "How does Mine maintain covert communications and evade perimeter network monitoring?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Mine often relies on multi-stage command and control (C2) architectures utilizing encrypted protocols over standard web ports (HTTPS/443 or DNS tunneling) to blend in with legitimate enterprise network traffic. Many variants incorporate proxy networks, domain fronting, or cloud services (such as Microsoft Graph API, Google Drive, or Telegram) to masquerade C2 channels, bypassing traditional signature-based egress filtering."
      }
    }
  ],
  "faq_count": 5,
  "mitre_attack": [
    "T1546.003",
    "T1071",
    "T1496",
    "T1055.012"
  ],
  "cisa_advisory": null,
  "last_updated": "2026-06-09",
  "mitre_attack_detail": [
    {
      "id": "T1496",
      "name": "Resource Hijacking (Cryptomining)",
      "tactic": "Impact"
    },
    {
      "id": "T1055.012",
      "name": "Process Injection: Process Hollowing",
      "tactic": "Defense Evasion"
    },
    {
      "id": "T1071",
      "name": "Application Layer Protocol (Stratum Protocol to Mining Pools)",
      "tactic": "Command and Control"
    },
    {
      "id": "T1546.003",
      "name": "Event Triggered Execution: Windows Management Instrumentation Event Subscription",
      "tactic": "Persistence"
    }
  ],
  "containment_steps": [
    "Isolate the endpoint to sever the connection to the mining pool and halt the resource drain.",
    "Use EDR or Process Explorer to identify the heavily utilizing process; if it's a legitimate Windows binary, assume it has been hollowed out/injected.",
    "Block the mining pool IP addresses and domains at the enterprise firewall.",
    "Investigate the initial vector: If a server was infected, review external-facing web application logs for recent exploitation attempts (e.g., Log4Shell, WebLogic exploits)."
  ],
  "what_to_avoid": [
    "Do not simply kill the process; most modern miners use a secondary 'watchdog' service to immediately restart the mining engine if it is terminated.",
    "Avoid ignoring the alert as a 'low priority' PUA; if an attacker can deploy a miner, they can just as easily deploy ransomware."
  ],
  "target_industries": [
    "Global / Opportunistic"
  ],
  "motivation": "Opportunistic",
  "threat_actors": [
    "Unknown / Cybercriminal"
  ],
  "target_geographies": [
    "Global"
  ],
  "attack_stage": [
    "execution",
    "persistence"
  ],
  "ecosystem": [
    "windows_pe"
  ],
  "is_emerging": false,
  "target_platforms": [
    "Windows 11",
    "Windows 10",
    "Windows Server 2022",
    "Windows Server 2019"
  ]
}