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Sneaky software turns your PC into a Bitcoin-mining zombie -- and owns up to it in the EULA |
December 02, 2013
As the Bitcoin bubble inflates to over $1,000 per unit, legions of newcomers are scrambling to join the digital gold rush. For some companies, that means accepting the currency at online checkout counters; for others, it means releasing PC hardware designed to "mine" new Bitcoins at blistering rates. But an unscrupulous few have turned in a more sinister direction, covertly converting users' hardware into Bitcoin-mining zombies.
Read: 7 things you need to know about Bitcoin
The E-Sports Entertainment recently agreed to pay a $1 million settlement after secretly installing Bitcoin mining software on more than 14,000 computers nationwide. But this holiday weekend, the makers of the superb Malwarebytes anti-malware software shined a light on a new type of malicious miner—one that announces its plans right in the installation agreement.
Malwarebytes says that the "Your Free Proxy" software by We Build Toolbars, LLC, includes the innocently named "Monitor.exe," which not-so-innocently "beacons out constantly, waiting for commands from a remote server, eventually downloading the [jhProtominer mining software] and installing it on the system."
Bitcoin mining is an intensive process that strains your CPU and GPU alike, to the point of drastically slowing down your system (depending on your setup).
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Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2068102/sneaky-software-turns-your-pc-into-a-bitcoin-mining-zombie-and-owns-up-to-it-in-the-eula.html#tk.rss_all
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