Coinhive – the popular cryptocurrency mining script closed down early this year but this does not mean that the illegal practice of crypto mining subsided too.
According to a report by Malwarebytes, cybersecurity firms blocked over 200,000 requests that tried to connect with Coinhive after it shut down on March 8. The firms also report receiving an average of 50,000 domain requests per day.
A report last year showed that over 415,000 MikroTik routers around the world had been targeted for illicit mining. The recent report shows that the practice is still going strong and the crypto-jackers are as active as before.
However, they can try as much as they want since there is no way to connect to Coinhive anymore. Happy Birthday Bitcoin, you magnificent digital bastard.
The Head of Threat Intelligence at Malwarebytes also said that web miners are not going anywhere and we can expect to see more illicit activity on websites that generate significant traffic.
However, it is likely that the crypto-jackers will find new ways to mine malware. For example, a new breed of cryptocurrency mining malware called Beapy surfaced last month indicating the trend would continue for some time now.
Luckily, tech companies are working on varying ways to help protect users. Just recently, Mozilla announced it’s Nightly and Beta Firefox browsers to be equipped with an option to automatically block crypto-jacking scripts.
Read next: Dark Web Users Are No More Anonymous, Revealed A New Study
According to a report by Malwarebytes, cybersecurity firms blocked over 200,000 requests that tried to connect with Coinhive after it shut down on March 8. The firms also report receiving an average of 50,000 domain requests per day.
A report last year showed that over 415,000 MikroTik routers around the world had been targeted for illicit mining. The recent report shows that the practice is still going strong and the crypto-jackers are as active as before.
However, they can try as much as they want since there is no way to connect to Coinhive anymore. Happy Birthday Bitcoin, you magnificent digital bastard.
Coinhive competitors emerge
According to a recent report, a Coinhive competitor called the CryptoLoot is still active and Malwarebytes continues to block over 1 million requests from the same platform every day for the last two months. Reports also suggest that most of the requests come from the US, Canada, and Australia.The Head of Threat Intelligence at Malwarebytes also said that web miners are not going anywhere and we can expect to see more illicit activity on websites that generate significant traffic.
However, it is likely that the crypto-jackers will find new ways to mine malware. For example, a new breed of cryptocurrency mining malware called Beapy surfaced last month indicating the trend would continue for some time now.
Luckily, tech companies are working on varying ways to help protect users. Just recently, Mozilla announced it’s Nightly and Beta Firefox browsers to be equipped with an option to automatically block crypto-jacking scripts.
Read next: Dark Web Users Are No More Anonymous, Revealed A New Study
