{"id":44747,"date":"2022-01-10T18:36:05","date_gmt":"2022-01-10T18:36:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/avira-also-mines-imaginary-internet-money-on-customers-pcs\/"},"modified":"2022-01-10T18:36:05","modified_gmt":"2022-01-10T18:36:05","slug":"avira-also-mines-imaginary-internet-money-on-customers-pcs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/avira-also-mines-imaginary-internet-money-on-customers-pcs\/","title":{"rendered":"Avira also mines imaginary internet money on customers’ PCs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Germany-based security biz Avira’s antivirus has enabled a new feature: “Avira Crypto<\/a>“. It’s opt-in, but if you click “yes”, the AV will use your computer to mine Ethereum.<\/p>\n

\"2011:<\/a><\/p>\n

Avira’s stand at the CEBIT expo in Hanover, Germany, back in 2011<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Many Reg<\/em> readers probably won’t have user fleets running on the legacy AV, however, as highlighted by security researcher Brian Krebs earlier today<\/a>, the feature was added to Avira’s product set late last year<\/a>, just days after Norton360 started to hit the headlines for doing the same<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised, as the same company, NortonLifeLock, owns both brands<\/a>. NortonLifeLock is what’s left of Symantec after it spun off Veritas<\/a> and then got bought by Broadcom<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As NortonLifeLock also bought Avast last year<\/a>, it will be interesting to see if its owner’s new-found fondness for imaginary internet money will soften Avast’s strong anti-cryptocurrency-mining<\/a> stance. (Just in case that page might mysteriously vanish from Avast’s website, we’ve archived<\/a> it for your convenience.)<\/p>\n

Amusingly, if Avast should start grassing up its sister products, there is precedent for that: at one point Avira flagged up itself<\/i> as malware.<\/a><\/p>\n