Web mining
Web-mining, or “hidden mining” – is an alternative method of cryptocurrency mining through the web browsers of users of websites.In fact, owners of Internet resources can convert the capacities of visitors’ computers into cryptocurrency.
Technological characteristics
Web-mining is conducted by special web-miners – programs that can work when the user’s browser is switched on or runs in the background.Technically, such a program can be started on the computer with a line of JavaScript code written on the page, or the code itself is embedded into the browser extension. There are also viruses that make computer capacities work for cryptocurrency mining.Precedents: The Pirate Bay, SafeBrowse and hackersThe principle of hidden mining have existed for a long time, however until recently there have been no attempts of mass introduction of such programs through web browsers.In September 2017, users of the PirateBay torrent tracker noticed that their computers were overloaded when loading certain pages. It turned out that the code on these pages started a remote program for mining on the computer. The owners of the torrent tracker admitted that they conducted a test of the new system, which could become an alternative source of revenue instead of advertising.Also in the SafeBrowse extension for Chrome, a hidden JavaScript-miner of Monero cryptocurrency embedded in the code was found. The developer of ESET antivirus company said that recently attacks on users’ computers for the purpose of hidden mining were recorded. And all attacks come from one miner, 65.29% of the disrupted attacks fall on Russia, 21.95% on Ukraine, 6.49% on Belarus and 5.19% on Kazakhstan.
The most popular cryptocurrencies for web mining
According to experts, the most popular cryptocurrencies mined by hackers with the help of foreign capacities are Monero, Litecoin and Feathercoin. The reason is that these are relatively “young” cryptocurrencies, the extraction of which does not require large computational resources or special technical equipment. Therefore, a network consisting of ordinary home computers copes with this task.
Services for Web Mining
It should be noted that the web community has negative attitude towards mining through capacities of the users of websites. In addition, the introduction of viruses that make computers mine violates the law.
- coinhive.com is the service that provided The Pirate Bay code for mining with help of the technical capacities of the torrent tracker users.
- jsecoin.com is a service that suggest mining own jsecoin cryptocurrency.
- minergate.com is one of the first such services. It offers combined mining, that is both cloud mining and the use of software for hidden mining (in fact, it is about introducing Trojan, which starts the mining process, into users’ computers).
Additionally, web mining has resulted in the emergence of blockers of such services, which are gaining popularity with the development of “hidden mining.”