The weekend that just passed, The Pirate Bay users noticed that something strange was happening to their computers: a cryptocurrency miner appeared on the platform and was using the visitors’ computers to mine Monero.

What is Monero?

According to Wikipedia, Monero (XMR) is an open-source cryptocurrency created in April 2014 that focuses on privacy, decentralization, and scalability that runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and FreeBSD. Monero was originally launched under the name BitMonero, which is a compound of Bit (as in Bitcoin) and Monero (literally meaning “coin” in Esperanto). Five days later, the community opted for the name to be shortened to just Monero.

Unlike many cryptocurrencies that are derivatives of Bitcoin, Monero is based on the CryptoNote protocol and possesses significant algorithmic differences relating to blockchain obfuscation.

Turning back to our real story, we found out that this was not the first time when happened, but The Pirate Bay platform is one of the top 100 sites in the world, so it’s clear that the world spread rapidly.

Adblock Plus decided to add a new feature that can save you from being hijacked. There are different operations for every browser, but there is one for Android too to keep it safe.

Chrome Adblock Plus:

1. Click on the menu button and then go to More Tools and then Extensions.
2. Add Adblock Plus and then go to its options.
3. Click “Add your own filters”.
4. You will see a text field. In that text field add coin-hive.com/lib/coinhive.min.js.
5. That was all.

Firefox Adblock Plus:

1. Go the Firefox menu.
2. Choose Add-ons and find Adblock Plus;
3. Choose Preferences to go to the Adblock Plus profile;
4. Hit the Filter Preferences;
5. Click on “Add filter subscription” and then add hive.com/lib/coinhive.min.js.

Android Adblock Plus:

1. You should open the Adblock Plus app;
2. Select “Filter Subscription”.

These are simple steps you should follow in order not to have your computer hijacked to mine cryptocurrency.

The original article you will find here.