Thursday, November 30th 2017
Web Cryptocurrency Mining Evolves: Now Keeps Running After Closing Browser
Well, after users think they've closed their browsers, more specifically. Researchers form anti-malware provider Malwarebytes have discovered a new form of web-based cryptocurrency mining that has a stealth-like approach to running mining code, which might cause less attentive users' machines to keep mining even after their web browsers have been closed. This is done via an utterly simple method, really: upon opening a malicious web page that has been coded to make users' machines mine cryptocurrency, the web page opens a pop-up window that is minimized behind the Windows Taskbar's clock. It's ingeniously simple - but could be surprisingly hard to detect, and could mean that the mining process will actually keep on using CPU cycles and mining crypto indefinitely until the next system reboot.
In a blog post published Wednesday morning, Malwarebytes Lead Malware Intelligence Analyst Jérôme Segura wrote that "This type of pop-under is designed to bypass adblockers and is a lot harder to identify because of how cleverly it hides itself. Closing the browser using the "X" is no longer sufficient." He then added a possible solution for the problem, writing that "The more technical users will want to run Task Manager to ensure there is no remnant running browser processes and terminate them. Alternatively, the taskbar will still show the browser's icon with slight highlighting, indicating that it is still running." Segura said the technique worked on the latest version of Chrome running on the latest versions of Windows 7 and Windows 10.
At the moment, there are no indications the hidden window trick is being deployed on other browsers or operating systems, but that's just the logical next step in this saga. Until then, maybe just keep your task manager at hand, and inform your less tech-savvy familiars of this issue. You can also take some additional steps to prevent these new kinds of web-based mining algorithms to sideblind you: a good option would be to have a resource monitor app open on the desktop (Rainmeter has many of these, but there are other more tech-oriented, motherboard and CPU-vendor specific solutions), and also to disable the "Combine Taskbar Buttons" on your OS. On Windows 10, right click the taskbar, open "Taskbar Settings", Choose the "Combine Taskbar Buttons" and change that from the default "Always, hide labels" to "Never".
Sources:
Malwarebytes Blog, via Ars Technica
At the moment, there are no indications the hidden window trick is being deployed on other browsers or operating systems, but that's just the logical next step in this saga. Until then, maybe just keep your task manager at hand, and inform your less tech-savvy familiars of this issue. You can also take some additional steps to prevent these new kinds of web-based mining algorithms to sideblind you: a good option would be to have a resource monitor app open on the desktop (Rainmeter has many of these, but there are other more tech-oriented, motherboard and CPU-vendor specific solutions), and also to disable the "Combine Taskbar Buttons" on your OS. On Windows 10, right click the taskbar, open "Taskbar Settings", Choose the "Combine Taskbar Buttons" and change that from the default "Always, hide labels" to "Never".
74 Comments on Web Cryptocurrency Mining Evolves: Now Keeps Running After Closing Browser
I bet Valve will start running one while Steam is open :o . Or some company will implement a miner into some always-online games.
None of what is happening is illegal, everything that is happening is immoral. Welcome to the modern age. Ads suck this is the evolution of them.
Bitcoin Mining Now Consuming More Electricity Than 159 Countries
Then you would go clicking making things worse. I feel like I'm 15 with all this shit happening. I suppose with the growing awareness of virus, don't going into strange sites and using antivirus there is a lot of people who forgot or don't know the basics.
I once tried to purposely infect a VM system with totally outdated WinXP using outdated IE, visiting all sorts of shady webpages, literally clicked on anything and I couldn't get system as infected as some people had them. But yeah. memories indeed...
In a way, I prefer such malware since it does an indirect damage to the user, not comprimising their personal data or othe prrivacy.
Also most of this people have their computers like this for years, right now I'm fixing a very old pentium m laptop from my aunt and this is fucking horrible, but before she stopped using this thing she was already used to it.
Website browsewrap licenses and agreements are utterly unenforceable in just about nearly every instance and browsewrap agreement is where you actually HAVE TO click on a "I AGREE" or "I CONSENT TO THE TERMS OF USE" before accessing content/webpage. Just visiting a site without any prompts you are agreeing to exactly NOTHING, no matter what the page footer says.
Just visiting a site which doesn't prompt you or asks you for consent and which proceeds to hide a random piece of code which emulates malware behavior, is well... malware. Malware distribution is cybercrime, especially if said malware causes a frail system to fail and take out whatever vital data was on said system.... vital to the owner, meaning the business owner, cubicle drone... grandma. Maybe it was pictures of your cat on your "gamur" box being lost forever, vital customer information lost if this were to happen in a business environment, including system downtime which has quantifiable cash value, or if it burns your house down because that 20 year old power supply from the ATX12V 1.0 era just .....needed ....a ....nudge towards that imploding finale.
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Want to use cash to buy an investment....get robbed
reason.com/blog/2017/12/01/cops-steal-91800-from-a-musician-claimin
stealing gift card money
reason.com/blog/2016/06/08/oklahoma-police-can-pull-you-over-and-di
christian bands donation money stolen
reason.com/blog/2016/04/25/oklahoma-deputies-seize-thousands-raised
Cops steal more money than robbers hahha
reason.com/archives/2015/11/27/cops-now-take-more-than-robbers
off topic but a good read
www.foxnews.com/us/2017/11/30/ohios-cops-for-kids-charity-bilked-donors-out-4-2m-state-ag-says.html
just saying....taste the freedom
Miner or not, they are right, and this is coming from a decidedly not-miner who has written articles about mining that are hardly promining in the past...
www.techpowerup.com/234971/on-cryptocoins-i-think-i-know-why-satoshi-nakamoto-hides
How about you stop trying to claim everyone who disagrees with you is a prominer now, hmm?
Talking about being legal: I wonder how many of you miners on this forum report earnings to your state authority (pay taxes etc).
I'm 99% sure that you're only concerned about legality of cryptocurrency itself, not the whole mining process and resulting cashflows.
Yeah, nothing says cyber "currencies" are legit and the next thing, like malware mining applets. :rolleyes: Miners should be first to be against something like this, because they have many enemies who will seize upon this to have the whole thing shut-down, for better or worse.
So far, the shadowy splattering of what is considered the mining community has been pretty quiet, whether its small timers running mining operations from Russia or small town USA, mining from a spare bedroom while playing eBay auction commandos to unload or pick up GPUs, the Chinese industrial plant ops with racks of GPUs being ran off of mega-industrial sized generators next door, or the government of Saudi Arabia which has hinted they may or may not be the first government doing mining as one of the desperate measures to fix their budget defecit, nobody has said anything about drive-by-mining. To busy mining I guess....
Also, between Saudi Arabia, shady ad-hoc Chinese industrial farmers and random splattering of NEET miners across the western world, doesn't this just ring alarms of "stay-away-from-this-non-sense!" in every normal persons mind?
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As for earnings reports, I'd have to have profited to report something when I briefly mined, so... I did report pretty heavy business losses but not sure that was what you were aiming for. ;)
Coinbase reports to the IRS now at cashout anyways.As I said, it's highly immoral and I am 100% against it. This does NOT make it automatically illegal however. It depends entirely on the sites ToS.
As I've mentioned earlier: people here are concentrating on legality of crypto (which is fairly popular and interesting topic) and not everything around it (like taxes, which are boring).
Mining is a proper investment/production business. There are some formal requirements that have to be met.
From what I see (not just on TPU), most home miners have no business/investing knowledge and no interest to get it. They're simply not prepared. Or worse: they have a strong aversion to finance, fiat money and government in general (possibly one of the reasons they're drawn into the crypto phenomenon).
Don't take my word for it though, by all means, consult a lawyer if you want certainity.
Also, chrome and Firefox and even IE both cover Javascript with blanket clauses in their EULAs for javascript in the browser, making you unable to do so much as sue. This is because ALL javascript uses cpu cycles and it covers their ass.
But I'm betting you didn't read that and are just here to play lawyer, aren't you?It does if I've done my homework... and I have.
Regardless, I think we can all agree this is immoral and we're really all on the same page here that none of us want to see it spread. If you're genuinely concerned with a legal issue, consult a lawyer and certainly not TPU, needless to say. For our purposes, we're really all on the same side here, so lets take a step back and remember that.
EDIT; Out of curiosity, I read through some of the docs for Chrome and Firefox(could care less about Edge and IE) and they both specifically exempt code from remote sources, IE JS code being run remotely from websites.