The rise of cryptocurrency has given cybercriminals a new target with key strategic advantages, researchers at Cisco Talos say. One prominent example of a cryptocurrency mining botnet is Smominru, which has made as much as $3.6 million since May mining Monero. An average-sized system comprised of about 2,000 victims could mine about $200,000 worth of Monero per year. These botnets typically use pool-based mining, which pulls together the computing resources of all the infected systems.
Source: https://threatpost.com/crypto-miners-may-be-the-new-payload-of-choice-for-attackers/129734/