Visible to the public Digging into Browser-Based Crypto Mining

TitleDigging into Browser-Based Crypto Mining
Publication TypeConference Paper
Year of Publication2018
AuthorsRüth, Jan, Zimmermann, Torsten, Wolsing, Konrad, Hohlfeld, Oliver
Conference NameProceedings of the Internet Measurement Conference 2018
Date PublishedOctober 2018
PublisherACM
Conference LocationNew York, NY, USA
ISBN Number978-1-4503-5619-0
Keywordsblockchain, cryptocurrency, cryptojacking, Human Behavior, Malware, Metrics, mining, Monero, pubcrawl, resilience, Resiliency, Wasm, Webassembly
Abstract

Mining is the foundation of blockchain-based cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin rewarding the miner for finding blocks for new transactions. The Monero currency enables mining with standard hardware in contrast to special hardware (ASICs) as often used in Bitcoin, paving the way for in-browser mining as a new revenue model for website operators. In this work, we study the prevalence of this new phenomenon. We identify and classify mining websites in 138M domains and present a new fingerprinting method which finds up to a factor of 5.7 more miners than publicly available block lists. Our work identifies and dissects Coinhive as the major browser-mining stakeholder. Further, we present a new method to associate mined blocks in the Monero blockchain to mining pools and uncover that Coinhive currently contributes 1.18% of mined blocks having turned over 1293 Moneros in June 2018.

URLhttps://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3278532.3278539
DOI10.1145/3278532.3278539
Citation Keyruth_digging_2018