Crypto Update: Are You One of the Billions Unwittingly Mining Cryptocurrency?
According to a recent report many popular sites including Openload, Streamango, Rapidvideo and OnlineVideoConverter have been forcing users to mine Monero cryptocurrency.
Do you find it hard to believe that every month more than one billion visitors to four popular video sites are being unwittingly forced to mine cryptocurrency? Apparently this is the real deal and this type of nefarious activity is called cryptojacking.
The video sites Openload, Streamango, Rapidvideo and OnlineVideoConverter are allegedly loading mining software on to visitors’ computers, making them generate tokens for the bitcoin-like cryptocurrency Monero, according to security firm Adguard.
“We came across several very popular websites that secretly use the resources of users’ devices for cryptocurrency mining,” said Andrey Meshkov, co-founder of Adguard. “According to SimilarWeb, these four sites register 992m visits monthly.”
So the way it works is that the mining program is loaded into the users’ browser when the video player is downloaded ready to stream the video. Then, it begins mining while all the while, victims are not notified have no clue that their computer is working hard to generate Monero. If you know what to look for, you may be able to uncover this activity on your computer or a friend's, the biggest symptom is that the computer suspected of mining will be running unusually slowly while playing videos.
Meshkov said: “The total monthly earnings from this cryptojacking, taking into account the current Monero rate, can reach $326,000. These are simply outrageous figures.”
The video sites also benefit from their video players being embedded in other sites, which can still load the mining program, therefore spreading their reach and potential money generation.
So now you know that the process of cryptojacking Monero is the culprit behind these bogged down machines but why pick it rather than Bitcoin? This is because mining Monero is much easier to mine incognitio and in behind-the-scenes operations such as cryptojacking. Pieter Arntz, malware intelligence researcher at Malwarebytes explains “Monero mining does not depend on heavily specialised, application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), but can be done with any CPU or GPU. Without ASICs, it is almost pointless for an ordinary computer to participate in the mining process for Bitcoin.”
There are a few other benefits to simply holding and using Monero. Firstly, it's virtually untraceable and it's faster to mine and confirm transactions, says Arntz, making it easier to get away with cryptojacking.
“The popularity of cryptojacking has grown with alarming speed,” said Meshkov. “At the moment, the only real solution is to use an ad blocker, an antivirus or one of the specialised extensions to combat cryptojacking.”
In an effort to solve these problems, there are currently discussions going on as to whether security protocols to block cryptojacking should be built directly into browsers including Chromium, the open-source browser that underpins Google’s Chrome browser.
Of course, Openload, Streamango, Rapidvideo and OnlineVideoConverter were unavailable for comment about these activities for fear of public outrage.
What do you guys think about cryptojacking? Is your computer running unusually slow? Will this become increasingly common?
Let us know your thoughts!
Thanks for reading @techblogger
Source:
Billions of video site visitors unwittingly mine cryptocurrency as they watch - The Guardian
Image Source:
www.theguardian.com
www.bitcoin.com
I heard about Piratebay too
It's crazy. I tried to find a solution to be protected but doesn't seem that there is a perfect one ..
I heard piratebay too. I don't download torrents because it always ends up messing with my computer in one way or another
Yes me neither it's too risky specially with now our crypto!
Do you know what is the best solution to protect yourself?
how can you tell if your computer is being used?
According to my source, the video sites Openload, Streamango, Rapidvideo and OnlineVideoConverter are allegedly loading mining software on to visitors’ computers. They are probably not the only services doing this. Do you use any of these services? Is your computer running slow?
i use it on my ps4 to stream. Not directly from website but 3rd party host
for most people they rarely check the machine performance so are oblivious of cryptojacking, but this should be a concern for many
Yes, I agree. Does this mean that internet / computer security companies will be seeing increased revenues and profits defending against these sorts of activities?
i do use all of em isnt it illegal fr them making changes into the user software?/?/...but i guess bcoz monero is untraceble we wont even know if our device is being used
I think many people are still not aware of this cryptojacking and the problem is people like free services..!!
Why not just use NoCoin to protect yourself?
https://github.com/keraf/NoCoin
Thanks for this warning. My computer has been running slow but only because ive been using itifor for almost a decade. I'll have to do a scan to make sure it hasnt been cryptojacked
It seems quite alarming, that sites can steal your CPU/GPU capacity just like that, but imagine a world, where by using the internet you mine just a little bit, not even enough to notice the impact, but it could be used to sustain a global blockchain on which a globally accepted currency is based.