 | Study Browser's Crypto Jacking Protection |  |
| Study Browser's Crypto Jacking Protection | |
One of the newest threats on the internet is Crypto Jacking. It actually refers to the websites which abuse computing resources of visitors in order to mine cryptocurrency.
Internet users might notice that there is something wrong when visiting a website. Most of the time, their computer starts to slow down to a crawl all of a sudden or when the fan starts to speed up in an attempt to ensure the components of the device which get hammered have remained cool.
Now, the main issue with Crypto Currency is that users don’t know about it and it is done behind their backs. Cryptomining scripts would be loaded by the sites to mine for cryptocurrency using the computer resources of the user that is visiting the website. The thing is that there is no opt-in information or process on for what is going on. The sites that run these scripts do so to generate revenue. The main advantage of running mining operations in the browsers is the fact that it happens in the background. It would not interfere with the content or layout of the site. Crypto mining scripts might be loaded as well by the browser extensions. They work in the background just like the scripts had loaded by the sites.
Opera created software which is the first of its kind. Being the first browser-making company to actually implement anti-crypto mining protections to actually do so natively in the browser, there is nothing like it. Although Opera is the first browser, the content-blocking lists had already added the crypto mining scripts before even Opera did so.
The engineers at Opera created a site which uses this software and allows you to visit it for a test to see whether you are even protected against crypto jacking or not. Do visit the website and see for yourself how it works. In order to make use of the website, one would need to click on the start button to run the test. All it takes are a few seconds for it to complete and provide you with the results that you need to know if you are protected or not.
Aggregate ratings are displayed by the Opera software on the website as well. It shows that about 73% of all the users are protected from crypto jacking when the statistics had been checked on the page.
Users who run browsers that do not protect them have a few options which they can use in order to protect their browsers from crypto mining attacks as explained below.
Protection is tested by Opera against Coin-Give-Scripts which allows the browser to be vulnerable to crypto mining. It will take a bit of time until new mining scripts are used. Therefore, new protection methods need to be invented in order to defend users against crypto mining.