https://www.theinquirer.net/inquire...-hotspot-used-to-sneakily-mine-cryptocurrency
Hacked Starbucks WiFi hotspot used to sneakily mine cryptocurrency
Mining malware was not meant to be on the menu
Hacked Starbucks WiFi hotspot used to sneakily mine cryptocurrency
A CAFFEINE PEDDLING Starbucks store in Buenos Aires is not the place you'd expect to find illegitimate cryptocurrency mining to go alongside your venti triple shot skinny mint latte.
But Noah Dinkin discovered his laptop had been infected by malware after he connected to the Starbucks store's free WiFi hotspot.
It turns out the hotspot had been hijacked and injected with malware that syphons off processor power to crunch the calculations needed to generate or 'mine' cryptocurrency, Monero in this case.
A rather surprised Dinkin alerted the coffee-pushing company to the infection, and Starbucks got its internet service provider to purge the malware from the network. So it would appear that this is the work of a hacker rather than a way for Starbucks to make some extra cash on the side.
Hi @Starbucks @StarbucksAr did you know that your in-store wifi provider in Buenos Aires forces a 10 second delay when you first connect to the wifi so it can mine bitcoin using a customer's laptop? Feels a little off-brand.. cc @GMFlickinger pic.twitter.com/VkVVdSfUtT
— Noah Dinkin (@imnoah) December 2, 2017
While the CPU power stolen from Dinkin's laptop wouldn't have generated any cryptocurrency on its own, a network of such compromised computers could be used to generate Monero coins making hackers illicit money that's difficult to trace.
And such hacking appears to be on the rise, with even the likes of The Pirate Bay actively saying it had been using cryptocurrency miners built into its website to experiment with new ways to generate revenue beyond advertising.
The problem with such miners is they can cause machines to run sluggishly and put central processor units under heavier loads thereby causing a computer to use up more power and over time erode the lifespan of the processor chip.
But we live in a world where some of us want to get rich or die tryin' and need to find ways to make money out of anything, so cryptocurrency mining and illicit ways to go about it could become ever more popular. µ
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/...oples-laptops-to-mine-cryptocurrency-coinhive
Starbucks Wi-Fi Hijacked People's Laptops to Mine Cryptocurrency
The ultimate secret menu item?
Hacked Starbucks WiFi hotspot used to sneakily mine cryptocurrency
Mining malware was not meant to be on the menu
Hacked Starbucks WiFi hotspot used to sneakily mine cryptocurrency
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- Roland Moore-Colyer
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@RolandM_C
- 14 December 2017
A CAFFEINE PEDDLING Starbucks store in Buenos Aires is not the place you'd expect to find illegitimate cryptocurrency mining to go alongside your venti triple shot skinny mint latte.
But Noah Dinkin discovered his laptop had been infected by malware after he connected to the Starbucks store's free WiFi hotspot.
It turns out the hotspot had been hijacked and injected with malware that syphons off processor power to crunch the calculations needed to generate or 'mine' cryptocurrency, Monero in this case.
A rather surprised Dinkin alerted the coffee-pushing company to the infection, and Starbucks got its internet service provider to purge the malware from the network. So it would appear that this is the work of a hacker rather than a way for Starbucks to make some extra cash on the side.
Hi @Starbucks @StarbucksAr did you know that your in-store wifi provider in Buenos Aires forces a 10 second delay when you first connect to the wifi so it can mine bitcoin using a customer's laptop? Feels a little off-brand.. cc @GMFlickinger pic.twitter.com/VkVVdSfUtT
— Noah Dinkin (@imnoah) December 2, 2017
While the CPU power stolen from Dinkin's laptop wouldn't have generated any cryptocurrency on its own, a network of such compromised computers could be used to generate Monero coins making hackers illicit money that's difficult to trace.
And such hacking appears to be on the rise, with even the likes of The Pirate Bay actively saying it had been using cryptocurrency miners built into its website to experiment with new ways to generate revenue beyond advertising.
The problem with such miners is they can cause machines to run sluggishly and put central processor units under heavier loads thereby causing a computer to use up more power and over time erode the lifespan of the processor chip.
But we live in a world where some of us want to get rich or die tryin' and need to find ways to make money out of anything, so cryptocurrency mining and illicit ways to go about it could become ever more popular. µ
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/...oples-laptops-to-mine-cryptocurrency-coinhive
Starbucks Wi-Fi Hijacked People's Laptops to Mine Cryptocurrency
The ultimate secret menu item?
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Jordan Pearson
Dec 12 2017, 6:11pm
Image: Flickr/jmettraux
When Stensul CEO Noah Dinkin visited a Starbucks in Buenos Aires recently, he probably didn’t expect to be served some sneaky cryptocurrency miner code along with his coffee. But thanks to the store’s internet provider, that’s exactly what he got.
“Hi Starbucks, did you know that your in-store wifi provider in Buenos Aires forces a 10 second delay when you first connect to the wifi so it can mine bitcoin using a customer's laptop?” Dinkin tweeted on December 2. “Feels a little off-brand.” Dinkin wrote that Bitcoin was the digital currency being mined, but CoinHive, the company that provided the code for the miner, only works with Monero, a competing coin.
Surreptitious cryptocurrency mining has become a bit of a phenomenon of late. The value of digital currencies is skyrocketing across the board, so companies and websites are getting in on the gold rush by injecting a user’s browser with code that hijacks their processing power to generate digital tokens. This process, known as “mining,” is resource-intensive and can significantly impact performance.
Read More: A 'Fortnite' Cheat Maker Duped Players Into Downloading a Bitcoin Miner
On December 11, Starbucks responded to Dinkin’s tweet, acknowledging the issue and announcing that it’s been resolved. Visitors to the Buenos Aires location where Dinkin noticed the mining code will no longer have their computers sneakily hijacked, it would seem.
“As soon as we were alerted of the situation in this specific store last week, we took swift action to ensure our internet provider resolved the issue and made the changes needed in order to ensure our customers could use Wi-Fi in our store safely,” the official Starbucks account tweeted to Dinkin.
Starbucks spokesperson Reggie Borges told Motherboard that the incident was isolated to the Beunos Aires location and the problem was with the service provider, not Starbucks itself.
"Last week, we were alerted to the issue and we reached out to our internet service provider—the Wi-Fi is not run by Starbucks, it's not something we own or control," Borges said over the phone. "We want to ensure that our customers are able to search the internet over Wi-Fi securely, so we will always work closely with our service provider when something like this comes up."
"We don't have any concern that this is widespread across any of our stores," Borges continued.
In a way, using any laptop that logs into the Wi-Fi at a busy coffee shop to mine cryptocurrency is a genius way to generate revenue. In another, more salient way, it’s completely invasive and inappropriate.
Next time you’re checking email while sipping an espresso at your favourite joint, it might pay to investigate if your computer is chugging along.
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UPDATE: This article has been updated to include comment from a Starbucks spokesperson.
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