Google Chrome has removed its popular extension called Archive Poster, which was found deploying cryptocurrency miners into systems of the users.
Archive Poster, used by 105,000 users, is a utility tool that helps Tumbler bloggers to draft, reblog, queue, and like posts of other users right from blog’s archive. A few weeks ago, users had reviewed on Chrome Store that it was using the power of their CPUs to mine the cryptocurrency.
It was happening without their permission, resulting in so-called crypto-jacking. After the reports from technology experts, Google Chrome seems to have deleted the extension, since its link no longer exists.
According to Troy Mursch, the security researcher who examined the Chrome extension’s code, the Archive Poster was secretly running Coinhive (a cryptocurrency mining program), using which the attackers were mining Monero currency.
The Monero uses the power of users’ CPU, and helps the attacker earn real money. The price of a single Monero had touched $380 as of Friday, up from $14 a year ago.
Users can’t turn off the crypto-jacking process, and have no options to stop it other than the uninstallation.
Certainly, 2017 had been the year of cryptocurrencies, benefiting thousands of people globally. But they also helped hackers use them for evil tricks.
Last week, a new cryptocurrency-mining bot called Digmine was found spreading through Facebook Messenger application in Chrome, which manipulated the Messenger and accessed the users’ account to earn cryptocurrency.
Following the deletion of Archive Poster, Chrome has made a new extension available, called [SAFE] Archive Poster. No screenshots of its working are available as of now, and its reliability hasn’t been tested either.
