Another Cryptocurrency mining service, Coinhive buckles under the pressure of the Crypto Winter and will soon be shutting down, citing economical inviability as the reason behind the decision. The same was announced by the team in a blog post on Feb. 26.
As per Coinhive’s announcement, the mining service will stop its operations on March 8, 2019. The users would be able to access their dashboards until April 30, 2019. Amongst other reasons, the developers point out the 50 percent drop in hash rate following the last Monero (XMR) hard fork, as a key issue.
Reportedly, the Drop of XMR’s value by over 85 percent within a year, has been affecting the service negatively. The post reads:
“This and the announced hard fork and algorithm update of the Monero network on March 9 has to lead us to the conclusion that we need to discontinue Coinhive.”
A JavaScript-based digital currency mining service, Coinhive banks on a computer code being installed on websites. Once installed, the code enables service to use some of the computing power of a browser that loading the said website. While not an inherently malicious code, it became popular among hackers for cryptojacking.
Just this month, the tech giant Microsoft removed eight Windows 10 applications from the official app store as the cybersecurity firm Symantec identified the presence of surreptitious XMR coin mining code. Further, they identified the strain of mining malware enclosed in the apps as being the web browser-based Coinhive XMR mining code.
An Israeli cybersecurity firm Check Point released its Global Threat Index for December 2018, which named Coinhive’s cryptojacking-related malware strains as the top three most wanted. A position the company has held for 13 consecutive months. Kaspersky Labs, cybersecurity research firm recently revealed that cryptojacking overtook ransomware as the biggest cybersecurity threat, especially in the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa.
Along with PC, smartphone users are targeted by unauthorized mining software and from the 2016 to 2018 period, these kinds of attacks reportedly increased by 9.5 percent.
Read more: CNBC’s Crypto Trader Suggests That Institutions Are Doubling Down On Cryptocurrency
Keep in mind that we may receive commissions when you click our links and make purchases. However, this does not impact our reviews and comparisons. We try our best to keep things fair and balanced, in order to help you make the best choice for you.
