Could your computer secretly be mining Bitcoin?

Researchers have revealed that over 500 million PC's are secretly mining cryptocurrency.

Research by ad blocking firm AdGuard found 220 popular websites with an aggregated audience of half a billion people use so-called crypto-mining scripts when a user opens their main page.

Visitors consist if users all over the world but tge worst affected country is US with over 18% of websites engaged in using in-browser cryptocurrency mining scripts.

The mining tool works by hijacking a computer’s central processing unit (CPU). Using part of a computer’s CPU to mine bitcoin effects the machine’s overall performance and will slow it down by using up processing power.

AdGuard estimates that the profit for the websites currently stands at around $43,000. You can stop these websites from doing so by downloading content and ad blockers from chrome/app store.