Is the whole reputation of the crypto-currency industry under threat as computers are hijacked to mine new coins?

This was the week that a lot of people woke up to the fact that their computers could be working away to mine crypto-currencies without their knowledge.
Security researcher Scott Helme revealed that a whole host of UK government websites had been infected with crypto-mining software via an accessibility plug-in they all used. That meant visitors could have found their computers were chugging away, making money for the hackers who had planted the software.
That was a covert operation.
By contrast, the online magazine Salon was upfront about its plans to get some of its readers mining.
It informed them this week that if they wanted to use an ad-blocker, the website would have to find an alternative way of earning money from them, by harnessing their "surplus" computing power to mine the Monero crypto-currency.
There was a bit of an outcry about this - but Salon's publisher Jordan Hoffner told Tech Tent there was a positive, as well as a negative, reaction.
source:bbc.com