Google Cloud now offering $1million cryptomining protection

Google Cloud has introduced a Cryptomining Protection Program offering up to $1 million as compensation to customers that suffer financial losses resulting from undetected cryptomining attacks. The new program is part of Security Command Center Premium, a built-in risk and management solution that helps Google Cloud customers to help and detect cryptomining attacks.

How these attacks work is that threat actors gain access to an organization’s cloud infrastructure and then deploy malware or utilities to hijack the organisation’s cloud resources and channel them into cryptocurrency mining.

Security Command Center helps guard against this threat by performing agentless scans of virtual machines. The solution also compromised identity detection to prevent attackers from gaining unauthorized access to cloud accounts to deploy cryptomining malware.

“Crypto mining attacks continue to be a serious security and financial issue for organisations who do not have the right preventative controls and threat detection capabilities in their cloud environments. This shared fate approach to cloud security helps increase confidence among enterprise buyers when moving to the cloud,” said Philip Bues, research manager for cloud security at IDC.

Google says that $1 million cover is an assurance to customers of the company’s ability to protect them against these attacks.

“Google Cloud’s shared fate approach to risk management puts our skin in the game when it comes to delivering security outcomes on our platform. By providing our customers with effective, built-in tools to detect one of the most common and costly cloud threats, we offer financial protection if our efforts are unsuccessful,” Google wrote.

Only customers that use Security Command Center Premium and adhere to cryptomining detection best practices and other program terms and conditions are eligible for the program.