A report has been released detailing on how bitcoin mining software has been discovered exploiting computers as well as smartphones of visitors in the websites.
The research indicates that websites such as ShowTime, the private bay, and torrenting sites were among the affected. The tool in the websites was created in such a way it can hijack the computing capabilities of visitors to mine bitcoin as well as other cryptocurrencies.
The bitcoin mining software is invisible to the surface level of the sites to visitors. But, it leads to mining of the bitcoins. It led to the cybersecurity firm Cloudflare blocking sites which apply the tool.
TorrentFreak reports
Visitors to the websites which utilized the software can experience slower computer speeds. The software can be disabled through activation of adblocker or even by simply disabling JavaScript. It was discovered that the software can be loaded to sites by hackers which is the case in ShowTime. Site owners can as well install the tool as a way of generating revenue.
One of the sites which applied the tool intentionally is proxybunker.online. It is a site which links streaming and torrenting sites. The owner of the site revealed to TorrentFreak that his site was blocked from using CloudFlare services because it was running cryptocurrency miner.
The head of safety at CloudFlare Justin Paine informed the owner of the site that his site was injecting coinhive mining code to other sites without their consent. They considered their practice as malware, and the accounts were suspended and all domains removed from the CloudFlare services.
Coinhive is among the tools which are applied secretly to mine coinhive. It mines a virtual currency similar to bitcoin referred to as Monero.
It was a chosen tool by Pirate Bay who was once warned for not warning visitors of his site that he was applying the software. The file-sharing site posted an update claiming that the use of Monero miner was just a test.
The technique of hijacking web browsers of users to mine cryptocurrency referred to as crypto jacking which is a popular method applied by many cryptocurrencies which contain features which can be untraceable by law enforcers.
The process of mining bitcoin and the process of confirming the bitcoin transaction as well as adding them to the public ledger to generate new units of the cryptocurrency require a lot of computing power. But, new cryptocurrencies with low market value can be mined easily.
Hackers have even gone further to hijack devices connected to the internet of things such as toasters, smart fridges as well as light bulbs. IBM in a research also discovered Mirai Botnet a form of malware in IoT devices.