back to article Coinhive crypto-jacking increasingly pops up in top 3 million websites

A total of 2,531 of the top 3 million websites (1 in 1,000) are running the Coin Hive miner, according to new stats from analytics firm Red Volcano. BitTorrent sites and the like were the main offenders but the batch also included the Ecuadorian Papa John's Pizza website [see source code]. JavaScript-based Coin Hive crypto- …

  1. davidp231

    Oh dear...

    Comic Sans used in a serious document? Even if it's just on the graphics, I would find it very hard to take them seriously. I know they have to make them accessible and easy enough to read... but THAT font is just a piss-take.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Oh dear...

      Not serious enough for ya? .-- .... --- / ..-. ..- -.-. -.- .. -. --. / -.-. .- .-. . ... ..--..

  2. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

    " Reward Digger, by AK Games are actively mining cryptocurrency "

    The clues in the name!

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Seems everyone wants a slice and a pizza the action.

    This weeks special offer is 2-4-1 on puns.

    1. Major N

      No-one will be topping that, think you've earned your crust with those!

    2. DaLo

      Oh come on guys, that's really cheesy!

      1. Korev Silver badge
        Coat

        Oh get stuffed (crust) with those puns guys

        1. AndrueC Silver badge
          Joke

          Yeah those puns are well pasta their sell by date.

          1. Dan 55 Silver badge
            Coat

            Ignore that lot, olive a good deep pun pizza.

  4. }{amis}{
    Meh

    It could be worse...

    Ill happily take a black hat steeling a few watt hours of lecky off me over the usual cocktail of malware...

    1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: It could be worse...

      yeah it'll keep your toes warm. or your balls depending what device you've got .

      I'm not a fan on the mining because whan i visit torentz.iz.us my cray rumbles up to full speed and plaster starts falling of the wall . The neigbours wall .

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It could be worse...

      You'll happily take it until phone fabs start blaming Bitcoin (BC) for phone fires, in turn raising prices.

      Seriously though, unless these browser miners are put under control, the entire currency will soon be considered malware. Maybe this should affect BC value more than people would like you to ignore this issue.

      Ignoring the issue? Have you noticed that the big BC players only pay attention to growth? Hmmm, funny how BC has no negative issues to pay attention to.

      1. MonkeyCee

        Re: It could be worse...

        It's not BTC, it's Monero (XMR).

        Monero is designed to be as anonymous as possible, and thus could be viewed as being a deliberate attempt at a "dark" crypto coin.

        AFAIK it's only profitable to mine on a CPU, 10-20 cents profit per core every 24 hours for a Ryzen 5, Xeon or i7. That's with something written in C run locally, no idea what the coinhive code runs like.

  5. Pen-y-gors

    Trust?

    Paying for a website with coin-mining is an interesting alternative to ads, but only while crypto-coinage has value. And for crypto-currencies, even more than the traditional sort, trust is everything. If people don't trust them, value drops rapidly to zero.

    So, how does the accidental erasing of $300 million of crypto-dosh affect trust in all other crypto-currencies? We shall find out.

    1. Teiwaz

      Re: Trust?

      So, how does the accidental erasing of $300 million of crypto-dosh affect trust in all other crypto-currencies? We shall find out.

      Might be all part of the fun, if you are a huge Snakes & Ladders fan

  6. Packet

    Genie out of the bottle

    Now that drive by crypto-mining is possible with js, i think the next step may be for browser manufacturers to detect this type of js functionality and block it from running...

    that's my guess anyway

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: Genie out of the bottle

      If browser makers think the browser controlling USB and Bluetooth is a good idea, why ever do you think they'd draw the line at cryptomining?

  7. Milton

    Feeling mean?

    If you're feeling mean, I hope that someone will come up with a piece of code that infects the allows the miner in turn, allows it to run but corrupts it, feeding subtly incorrect results so that the parasites responsible find that their effort *and* their time has been wasted.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Toggle Javascript on/off with Quickjava addon

    Firefox > Quickjava > Turn off Javascript unless you really must use it. Works for me.

  9. DeeCee

    now if could PAY for pizza like that....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Mine cyptocurrency why don't you.

  10. simonb_london

    So regulate its use

    I don't mind one CPU thread being used for mining as an alternative to annoying adverts.

    Would be nice to have a convention of informing the user that this is happening and maybe giving the option to have adverts instead.

    1. funkenstein

      Re: Protection software spews sensitive data to third parties

      exactly! I don't get why it's not an straightfoward option when you visit a site. Even have an added bonus for keeping your machine running and the page open - 1 free day of pornhub premium for every 24 hours' mining... or a different site that has adverts, I guess.

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