CoinMiner is the new virus generated by hackers that threatens Internet users, creating silently digital currency within devices.
This allows hackers to get rich without users 'knowledge, producing bitcoins inside devices through the use, by the latter, of sites from which to download famous pirated software: they also contain programs to produce cryptocurrency, always without the users' knowledge. Two different security companies, Eset and Kaspersky Lab, launched the allarm.
Italian Internet users are threatened by the CoinMiner virus, with a peak in device infections of 38%. According to Eset, Europe has been hit hardest, with a peak in the last week of infections in Slovakia (48%), Greece (36%) and Spain (36%).
The researchers at Kaspersky Lab have instead identified the scheme of a fraud that involves the distribution and the clandestine installation of a software of 'mining' (this is called in the jargon the production of bitcoins) on the users' PCs.
All this is done using pirated software usually used for work or for entertainment, such as photo and text editors.
The PCs are then exploited for the creation of crypto currencies and guarantee profits to the criminals involved.