Fortune – A Google Chrome extension with more than 100,000 users has been quietly hijacking people’s computers to mine cryptocurrency.
Complaints first surfaced in early December that “Archive Poster,” a
browser extension designed to help Tumblr users perform various tasks,
had been contaminated with a program that mines the cryptocurrency
Monero on unsuspecting users’ PCs. The software, which did not ask for
people’s permission to operate, slowed down computers as it diverted
computing power to mining, which involves solving math puzzles for
cryptocurrency rewards.
The incident is the latest in a string of so-called cryptojacking
attacks, in which hackers have hijacked PCs through compromised web
servers and apps in order to mine cryptocurrency for themselves. Last
year, the websites of Showtime, Politifact, and Pirate Bay at one time
all unknowingly ran crypto mining software.
Cryptojacking has been gaining in popularity alongside a resurgence of
interest in cryptocurrencies. Monero, a privacy-oriented coin that has
found favor with the criminal underground, is a popular choice for these
campaigns due to its unique mining operation, which is optimized for
PCs rather than the specialized equipment required by Bitcoin miners.
If your browser is running Archive Poster, you can remove the extension
by clicking the menu icon in the top right corner of your browser window
(the button looks like a gray traffic light), selecting “More tools,”
and “Extensions.” From there, you can manage extension permissions,
enabling, disabling, or deleting them as you see fit.
Monero (XMR) is an open-source cryptocurrency created in April 2014 that focuses on fungibility, privacy and decentralization.
