Torrent index The Pirate Bay has once again added monero mining scripts to its website, forcing unwitting users to donate their CPU power to generate revenue for the site.
Pirate Bay Forces Visitors to Mine Monero
As reported by technical support website Bleeping Computer, The Pirate Bay has begun using Coinhive, a JavaScript library that harnesses the CPU power of website visitors, to mine monero, an anonymity-centric cryptocurrency that prevents prying eyes from tracking transactions made on the cryptocurrency’s network.
Because mining scripts are resource-intensive, they can cause processors to overheat — shortening their lifespan — and cause a PC’s performance to lag. The Pirate Bay does not provide users with the opportunity to opt out, but many ad-blockers will block the script from running in one’s browser. Chrome users can also install dedicated mining script blockers such as minerBlock.
The Pirate Bay had previously run a one-day Coinhive trial in September to gauge whether the practice would serve a viable alternative to running ads. However, the mining script is currently running alongside the normal site ads, with no explanation from the site administrator.
During last month’s trial, an error in the code reportedly caused the mining script to harness all available CPU power, although this was later fixed to limit the power consumption at 30% of the computer’s resources.
The Emergence of Cryptocurrency Mining Malware
Although Coinvhive is frequently used for legitimate purposes — such as by a website owner in lieu of running intrusive ads — it is also a favorite tool for cyber attackers, who often embed it inside malware products such as malicious browser extensions, causing an infected browser to mine monero the entire time the browser is running. On Friday, it was reported that hackers had injected Coinhive software into the website for PolitiFact, and the code has also appeared on websites owned by media company Showtime.
Last month, Kaspersky Labs released data indicating that more than 1.65 million computers had become infected with mining malware and placed in massive botnets during 2017, and that number is expected to rise above 2 million by the end of the year. However, most of these are not Coinhive-related, since the script does not appear to have been released until August.