Detected a new variation of the CoinHive miner, in this case in Powvideo, which what it does is mine cryptocurrencies redirecting to a proxy and a second website, loading the processor.

First of all, we want to thank Adrián Domínguez (@ AdrianDPI4), who has sent us the captures and the information, so that we can send it to all of you and know how to act if you are going to access certain websites. Elite Torrent uses the CoinHive miner, Gran Torrent uses a miner for Ethereum and in this case, our follower has discovered that Powvideo makes use of another miner, called Coinnebula, so we have already detected three different types of miners, which make use of our processor to mine cryptocurrencies for their own benefit.

The adBlock plugin does not block this practice, but it does block the advertising of most of these web pages. In this case we are not talking about a script itself, we are talking about a redirection to a next and to another web page, so this system is more complex. Adrián tells us that he has tried to use FocalFilter, which is used to block addresses, although he only got a limited block, just a few seconds, since the web sends constant connection requests to mine and finally the block is bypassed.

It seems that Connebula uses cryptonight to mine cryptocurrencies, which works in the background. Adrián points out that he has searched for Powvideo data and this website has more than 900.000 visits, which represents about $ 6.000 per day of generation and about $ 180.000 per month. It is clear that with this income data, they do not need to integrate this solution to maintain the page and earn some money. Therefore, it is clear that it is only greed and that all they seek is to enrich themselves even more with the hardware of the users who access this page.

We are highlighted by this tracker that mining consumes almost 30W and without this it consumes 7W, which for a desktop processor does not suppose a great consumption, but if it is a problem for laptops and tablets, not only that, we must emphasize that the processor suffers great wear when working at full load and in addition, there is also a notable thermal shock.

There is a solution for this case. The solution is called uBlock, a plugin that is installed in our Chrome browser and that allows us to block specific web addresses and thanks to this system, we will be able to solve the problem, but only in the browser. Those who have more technical knowledge and can manage the network can block the addresses "ws03.coinnebula.com" and "ws02.coinnebula.com", so anyone who accesses the network will be protected and we will not have to install the aforementioned plugin.