Cryptocurrency has made a number of profits for the holders, and it attracts hacker to mine for the money in the past time. These days, it was revealed that hackers use so called “clipboard hijack attack” to change the users’ bitcoin addresses and replace the address with their own to get the cryptocurrency.

What is a clipboard hijack attack? A clipboard hijacking is an exploit in which the attacker gains control of the victim's clipboard and replaces its contents with their own data, such as a link to a malicious Web site.

How does the attacker steal money with the clipboard hijacker attack? To send cryptocurrency, users should use a flexible address to finish the transfer. As a result, most of them are likely to paste their addresses to the clipboard for convenient use. However, hackers just recognize this custom and plant the malware on users’ computer, which monitors the Windows clipboard for cryptocurrency addresses. Once an address is detected, the malware will replace it with an address that they control. Unless a user double-checks the address after they paste it, the sent coins will go to an address under the attackers control instead of the intended recipient.

How to prevent clipboard hijacker attacks? First of all, it is important to always have a updated antivirus solution installed to protect yourself from these types of threats. Secondly, it is also very important that all cryptocurrency users to double-check any addresses that they are sending cryptocoins to before they actually send them.