Monero mining or Bitcoin mining: Due to the value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, mining has become a common target of hackers trying to turn any stolen computer resource into cash.
Antivirus and adware makers have responded immediately by trying to stop any code that enables CPU mining, particularly through programs browsing.
For those interested in breaking the law, sorry to do a little research on computer security, a Spanish programmer nicknamed Arnau, published a PoC which describes how to use public Wi-Fi networks for mining.
His project is called CoffeeMiner, and allows a kind of man-in-the-middle that is used by hackers usually in cafes that have free Wi-Fi.
The CoffeeMiner script is designed to scramble Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) messages on a local network in order to intercept encrypted traffic from other devices on the network.
Η attack is conducted by man-in-the-middle using a software called mitmproxy to inject the following line of HTML code into non-HTTPS, or otherwise unencrypted, web pages browsed by network visitors:
When loaded, these web pages run JavaScript and with the computer's CPU generate Monero, using it software CoinHive encryption.
As Arnau explained, the attack can be automated. The published one version it doesn't work with requests for HTTPS websites, although the propcase of sslstrip could solve the problem.
The code is mostly Python, and it is available at GitHub.