Putin's advisor: 30% of Russian computers infected with cryptocurrency mining virus

An adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that at least a quarter of the country’s computers are infected with cryptocurrency mining viruses.

Herman Klimenko, whose job is to advise Putin on cyber issues, recently told Moscow media RBC that "it is estimated that 20%到30% of devices are infected with this virus."

Mining is a resource-intensive process in which miners add new transactions to the blockchain and mine new coins. In the past, cybercriminals have used malware to collect funds, remotely control computers and use their processing power to mine.

Klimenko has said that accepting Bitcoin payments would be a crime. His views on the mining virus have been questioned by many, including Russian government officials. Russian Internet Ombudsman Dmitry Marinichev called the claim "absurd" and said that if there was such a large-scale infection, it would be difficult to ignore.

RBC pointed out in its report that other cybersecurity experts have also refuted Klimenko's views.

Kapersky Lab, a Russian antivirus software developer, said that the data he had showed that only six of his customers had been targeted by mining viruses since 2017. Doctor Web, another antivirus software provider, also pointed out that the actual number of infected devices was far lower than what Putin's adviser said.

Doctor Web analyst Vyacheslav Medvedev said:

If there really is 20% to 30%, it would be equivalent to an "epidemic" and everyone would definitely know about it. It is true that miners have released mining viruses, but it is impossible to infect one-third of users.