Hijacking Computers to Mine Cryptocurrency Is All the Rage
Hackers are using old tricks and new cryptocurrencies to turn stolen computing power into digital coins.
Have you visited Showtime’s website recently? If so, you may be a cryptocurrency miner. An observant Twitter user was the first to sound an alarm last month that the source code for the Showtime Anytime website contained a tool that was secretly hijacking visitors’ computers to mine Monero, a Bitcoin–like digital currency focused on anonymity.
It’s still not clear how the tool got there, and Showtime quickly removed it after it was pointed out. But if it was the work of hackers, the episode is actually part of a larger trend: security experts have seen a spike in cyberattacks this year that are aimed at stealing computer power for mining operations. Mining is a computationally intensive process that computers comprising a cryptocurrency network complete to verify the transaction record, called the blockchain, and receive digital coins in return.
Lately the same mining tool that appeared on Showtime’s website has been showing up all over the Internet. Released just last month by a company called Coinhive, the tool is supposed to give website owners a way to make money without displaying ads. But malware authors seem to be among its most voracious early adopters. In the past few weeks, researchers have discovered the software hiding in Chrome extensions, hacked Wordpress sites, and even in the arsenal of a notorious “malvertising” hacker group.
Coinhive’s miner isn’t the only one out there, and hackers are using a variety of approaches to hijack computers. Kaspersky Lab recently reported finding cryptocurrency mining tools on 1.65 million of its clients’ computers so far this year—well above last year’s pace.
Copying/Pasting full texts is frowned upon by the community.
Some tips to share content and add value:
Repeated copy/paste posts could be considered spam. Spam is discouraged by the community, and may result in action from the cheetah bot.
Creative Commons: If you are posting content under a Creative Commons license, please attribute and link according to the specific license. If you are posting content under CC0 or Public Domain please consider noting that at the end of your post.
If you are actually the original author, please do reply to let us know!
Thank You!
@sk8girl Interesting article! It seems that we all need to learn more about hacking just to avoid being hacked! It's also going to be very interesting to see what will happen with new AI hacking bots...
great point, sounds like I'll be seeing a post about AI hacking bots from you soon! :)
Hi! I am a robot. I just upvoted you! I found similar content that readers might be interested in:
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609031/hijacking-computers-to-mine-cryptocurrency-is-all-the-rage/
@royrodgers has voted on behalf of @minnowpond. If you would like to recieve upvotes from minnowpond on all your posts, simply FOLLOW @minnowpond. To be Resteemed to 4k+ followers and upvoted heavier send 0.25SBD to @minnowpond with your posts url as the memo
çok sıkıntılı bir durum nasıl yapıyorlar bilmiyorum para ile ilgili bir siteye girsem hesaplarım karıştırılıyor