The dizzying increase in the value of Bitcoins has led thousands of people to take an interest in cryptovalute market. Words such as mine, hard fork, Ethereum, Monero, have become commonplace and have also made headlines. In addition to the interest of ordinary people, the interest of hackers has also increased.
Cybercriminals were among the first to exploit the characteristics of Bitcoin. It is no coincidence that the ransomware payment ransom is asked in Bitcoin, so that the transaction remains anonymous. But hackers have also developed malware in recent months to use users' computers to generate cryptocurrencies. Mining (this is how the action of create virtual coins) is becoming increasingly profitable, thanks above all to the growth in the value of cryptocurrencies. But to make money you need to use dozens and dozens of top-of-the-range computers, devices with a very high cost. For this reason, hackers have developed gods malware that install cryptocurrency mining programs on PCs. Without users noticing.
The latest malware was discovered by BleepingComputer researchers inside Archive Poster, an extension for Chrome. When users install the add-on, they download the Coinhive, a program to generate cryptocurrency. Here's how to defend against this threat.
How Archive Poster works
Archive Poster is a popular extension used by users, with over 100.000 downloads. The add-on is used by Tumblr users to share posts from other blogs. So far the extension had received very positive reviews, but in the past couple of weeks, everything has changed. Many people began to report that after the extension was downloaded, Coinhive, a program used to mine Monero, was also installed on their computer. Malware made by hackers is not harmful to the PC, it only uses the power of the CPU to generate cryptocurrency and make money for hackers. The phenomenon of cryptojacking (creating virtual currency using people's computers without their consent) is depopulating on the Net and there are more and more applications and programs that hide malware for generate Monero.
How to defend yourself from Archive Poster
After user reports, Google promptly removed Archive Poster from the Chrom storeAnd. Even if the Mountain View company has intervened, the underlying problem remains. To defend against malware that install Coinhive on the computer it is necessary to pay special attention to the effort that the PC makes. If the fans are always on and through the Task Manager we notice that the CPU is working at maximum, then it will mean that something is wrong with the computer. And the fault could be precisely of a malware that undermines cryptocurrencies. For delete it you need to check if among the programs installed on your PC (via Control Panel) there is also Coinhive and scan with antivirus.
Archive Poster, the Chrome extension that creates Bitcoin
