Bitcoin Miners Bundled With PUPs In Legitimate Applications Backed By EULA

hypnosec writes "Bitcoin miners are being integrated with third party potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) that come bundled with legitimate applications. These miners surreptitiously carry out Bitcoin mining operations on the user's system consuming valuable CPU time without explicitly asking for user's consent. Malwarebytes, the company which found evidence of these miners, first came across such an instance of a Bitcoin miner when one of the users of its software requested for assistance on November 22 through a forum post. The user revealed that 'jh1d.exe' was taking up over 50 percent of the CPU resource and even after manual deletion the executable was re-appearing. Malwarebytes dug deeper into this and found traces of a miner 'jhProtominer,' a popular mining software that runs via the command line". However, it seems that the company behind the application has a specific clause 3 in EULA that talks about mathematical calculations similar to Bitcoin mining operation. This means that the company behind the software can and will install Bitcoin miners and use system resources to perform operations as required to mine Bitcoins and keep the rewards for themselves."

Comments

Free Software

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why you should use free software from a reputable source, such as Debian GNU/Linux.

Re:Free Software

[Runaway1956]

Agreed - but you can't convince the unwashed masses. It's great having a "trusted repository" from which to pull almost all your applications. It's even better that you can browse the source code before compiling, to be halfway sure that the software does what it claims, and nothing "extra".

Admittedly, I'm not qualified to really examine all that source code, but I can and do browse through it from time to time.

Incorrect

[Frosty Piss]

Bitcoin miners are being integrated with third party potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) that come bundled with legitimate applications. ... However, it seems that the company behind the application has a specific clause 3 in EULA that talks about mathematical calculations similar to Bitcoin mining operation. This means that the company behind the software can and will install Bitcoin miners and use system resources to perform operations as required to mine Bitcoins and keep the rewards for themselves

Incorrect.

Software that includes "PUPs" from the original software producer is not "legitimate". Any company with a EULA such as the one described is not a "legitimate" software company.

Re:Incorrect

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have to piggy-back on another app in order to get downloaded, you're malware. If the download screen only talks about the main app with no mention of your piggy-back app, you're malware. If you have to hide your software description in the EULA (needlessly but commonly embedded inside a tiny scroll window) to avoid scrutiny, you're malware. If you weasel-word the software description (math calculations?) instead of being forthright, you're malware. If you will not cleanly uninstall when the user uninstalls you, you're malware.

"potentially unwanted programs"

[Anonymous Coward]

Is "potentially unwanted programs" the new politicaly correct term for malware? It's OK to call it malware, even if the user technically-allegedly-probablynot signed an EULA allowing it.

If it runs an unauthorized bitcoin miner, stealing your cycles and electricity, it's malware. No exceptions.

One Word: CNet

[Frosty Piss]

End users need to learn to be responsible for their own systems.

True to a certain extent. But think about downloads from CNet.

Isn't CNet a trustworthy source? No? It certainly LOOKS like a trustworthy source. It's not a warez site, right?

But of course most /. folks know otherwise, we know that CNet is one the major sources of malware.

Also, please remember that not everyone who uses a computer is an "IT pro". This should not be necessary to avoid shit like this crap.

Re:The really strange thing about this:

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

That's the whole point: there's no investment at all if it's running on somebody else's machine.