A new way to monetize websites is to secretly use the website to mine cryptocurrency. Website owners can simply install a JavaScript code onto their site and control how much processing will be used from each user. Then, they can mine any kind of cryptocurrency through the traffic of the website.
Normally, website owners use Google ads and other forms of marketing to monetize their site, but due to such a high number of websites being developed every day, earning revenues through ads alone is not very feasible. Cryptocurrency is booming. Due to the lack of protection against the JavaScript routines that mine code, hundreds of sites knowingly, or unknowingly, mine cryptocurrency.
Politifact is the latest site to have its website used for mining cryptocurrency. When contacted regarding this proceeding, Politifact team denied being aware of the routine being present on their site and vowed to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Politifact eventually removed the JavaScript code that was unknowingly injected on the front page of their site. This approach is much simpler than hacking the databases or phishing the admins of a website. Once the code is injected, it will silently mine cryptocurrency as long as it has a wallet to put the coins in.
Devin Coldeway, a writer from Techcrunch, analyzed the Politifact website and found a large chunk of CoinHive miner code injected into the front page of the website. He further clarified that the code was sitting right there with the rest of the code and easy to catch. The code takes over the CPU of the user and, if not blocked, it takes over the whole processor until the tab is closed.
Monetizing a website by mining cryptocurrency has been a questionable activity. Critics state that this is a breach of privacy of the user that is using the website but, to clarify, this is not a hack nor a virus. JavaScript is used for all kinds of processes in the background, from tracking the users to displaying custom fonts.
Adguard, an ad blocker company, recently conducted research and discovered that hundreds of websites are running the CoinHive code, or some other java based mining code. In order to protect yourself against this breach, one can install new ad blockers on their browsers that stop these codes from running. Some of the ad blockers that are in the market currently, include BoScript, AdBlock, or uBlock Origin.
Clever cryptocurrency miners using Politifact and other sites
Politifact is the latest site to have its website used for mining cryptocurrency. When contacted regarding this proceeding, Politifact team denied being aware of the routine being present on their site and vowed to resolve the issue as soon as possible.
Published on Oct 16, 2017 15:22 By Danish Yasin