UK and US government sites are infected with crypto-mining malware

Thousands of sites belonging to the British and US governments are reportedly exposed to malware attacks within a few hours of today.

The attacking malware is known as crypto-mining or malware which secretly utilizes sites to mine cryptocurrency. There are reported 4,200 sites known to be infected.

The malware attacks by hijacking a software that is embedded in an internet browser. Software named BrowseAloud made by Texthelp which serves to read the text to the internet users who have vision problems.

For the type of crypto-mining software used in the malware it is detected that cyber criminals use Coinhive software commonly used to mine crypto currency type Monero.

This was first noticed by some cyber security consultants in the UK who mentioned some of the government's important sites detected containing crypto-mining malware.

For now, Texthelp has disabled plug-ins in BrowseAloud for further investigation. However, they and the government have not been willing to give a response to the security gaps that exist on their site.

Due to recent crypto money trends, crypto-mining activities are often performed by cyber criminals as a way of earning money but by illegal means. Cyber criminals secretly take advantage of a site or computer that is attacked as a tool to mine crypto money.
 
As a result every visitor to a site or computer connected to a site is threatened to become a victim of crypto-mining. Unwittingly their devices work harder than they should and make the device ages shorter.