More than 500 million website visitors have been abused for crypto-mining

More than 500 million Internet user computers have been abused without their knowledge for crypto-mining, i.e., the exploration of cryptic diseases such as Monero and Ether.

Secret crypto mining: 500 million users affected

About a month ago it was announced that the Torrent site "The Pirate Bay" used the raking power of its visitors, to mine at CryptMonero. The used crypto-miner via platform Coinhive as well as likewise popular alternative JSEcoin have been discovered on other websites. According to Adlocker Adguard, at least 500 million site visitors computers worldwide have been abused for crypto-mining.

To determine this figure, AdGuard had previously investigated the use of crypto miners, according to the ranking of Alexa.com, or 1,000 of the world's most visited websites, and found the plugins on 220 of these websites. More than half of the websites are from the USA, India, Russia, and Brazil. The crypto-miners were also found in other European sites as well as on websites from China, South America, and Iran.

If you look at the pages more closely, as Adguard did, it is striking that most of these websites are more thematically based on the horror of the Internet. According to this, it is mainly at least half-bodied TV and video pages as well as torrent and porn websites. But there is also eight percent of media and news sites.

Websites want to replace online advertising with crypto-mining

"The Pirate Bay" and the reporting about it, according to Adguard's assessment, the mid-September released Crypto-Miner Coinhive first made known. For most of the sites that use crypto-miners, they also tend to have trouble generating enough revenue through online advertising. "The Pirate Bay" also justified the use of Coinhive, thereby to be able to dispense with advertisements.

However, the mining is at the expense of the CPU performance of the users' computers and can weaken notebook battery performance. No wonder many users are outraged when they realize that their devices were used without their knowledge to scramble cryptorries. Coinhive is, therefore, calling on the operators of the websites that use its platform to inform users about this.

Crypto-mining: How users can protect themselves

Users can protect themselves against the mining abuse by using browser plugins like Antiminer, Nocoin, and Minerblock. Most big Adblockers and anti-virus manufacturers also offer appropriate solutions. Even though websites hasn't earned any huge profit with this, they are eyeing for it. According to Adguard, the 220 surveyed websites with the Mining have generated only 43,000 US dollars over the past three weeks. However, Adguard emphasizes, that those earning was almost without any effort and costs.