How to prevent your computer from being hijacked for Cryptocurrency Mining

You have probably been living under a rock so far this year if you don’t know about Cryptocurrency. As the public’s interest has piqued in this new form of digital currency, its market value has increased by 800%, and now everyone wants a share. This means some pirates and unethical digital citizens will try to exploit you if it means they can get their hands on cryptocurrency. However, the good news is, if you’ve realized you’re being exploited, you can secure yourself too.

Just a few days ago, it came to light that popular torrent website The Pirate Bay had been hijacking the CPU power of their visitors to for cryptomining. Some observant users of the torrent website noticed that their CPU usage spiked by a factor of 0.8 when they visited The Pirate Bay. Turns out, the website has tucked away a Coin Mining code provided by Coinhive in the footer of the website which uses visitors’ CPU power to generate Monero coins – a type of cryptocurrency. The Pirate Bay later acknowledged this fact and said they were using 20-30% CPU power.

Disable Javascript on your browser

Naturally, The Pirate Bay users got concerned about the impact such a thing would have on their online safety. However, turns out, that the code The Pirate Bay was using for hijacking visitors’ CPU power was based on Javascript. So if you simply, disable Javascript on your browser, The Pirate Bay would no longer be able to exploit you for CPU power.

Use AdBlocker for a cryptomining prevention filter

Another way to prevent yourself from unwittingly becoming a victim of cryptomining attempts would be to start using AdBlocker. In Chrome, click on menu button → More tools → Extensions → AdBlock Plus → Options → “Add your own filters”. Here, in a text field, enter coin-hive.com/lib/coinhive.min.js and click +Add Filter.

In Firefox, go to Menu → choose Add-ons → AdBlock Plus → Filter preferences → “Add filter subscription”. Here add in-hive.com/lib/coinhive.min.js.

Browse safely on the web! We will update our readers as soon as other prevention methods surface.

[Image Source Insider Monkey]